Slider from sloe gin sloes

[Yellow Car]

Not wanting to waste the sloes (and the gin that they had soaked-up!) from my first sloe gin, I thought I'd have a go at a Slider - sloe-infused cider.
I started with a basic turbo cider with 4L of Asda Smart Price long-life juice (150g sugar/litre) plus 165g of sugar to make about 4.2L in a demijohn.
After 9 days I tipped the sloes from my gin into a clean demijohn, then racked the cider onto the sloes.
It took maybe a week before the sloes showed signs of fermenting but now, 3 weeks on, they are slowly but steadily bubbling away and the colour is darkening (second pic).

I'm going to leave it until there are no visible signs of fermentation, then bottle it for the summer.

In hindsight I'd have omitted the sugar as the cider on its own would have been close to 9% abv, plus whatever the gin/sugar soaked sloes add, so it's going to be one to sip.

 

[Yellow Car]

Bottled this yesterday - a total of 6 weeks after adding the sloes. It looks as though the yeast had to find its way into the sloes before they fermented as all the bubbled were coming from the holes in the berries. I also had a nibble of a spent berry before adding to the compost, and it was now pretty bland - so hopefully that means all the flavour and gin has infused into the slider.

I'll give it a few months before sampling.