INSPIRED by a holiday to Croatia, a Cambridge food blogger has had her homemade sloe gin named the best in the world.

Whereas most recipes suggest storing the drink in a cool, dark cupboard while the gin is distilled Danielle Ellis tried doing the opposite by leaving it outside after witnessing al fresco liqueur distillation during a trip to the Mediterranean country.

It proved a big hit with the judges at last month’s Sloe Gin World Championships who deemed it to be the best homemade sloe gin out of more than 30 entries.

In blind tasting, carried out by a panel of experts, the top six tipples in the homemade category all were rated higher than any of the commercial entries – which included the award-winning Six O’clock gin produced by Thornbury’s Bramley and Gage which was given a bronze medal in its category.

Having made the move to the village near Slimbridge from Edinburgh in July, Danielle took advantage of the wide availability of sloes on her doorstep to produce the drink.

 “I’d made sloe gin a long time ago but I saw loads of sloes right up the road from the house and decided to make a new batch,” she told the Gazette.

“It was a new recipe and I decided to do pretty much the opposite of the traditional sloe gin recipe after a trip to Croatia a few years ago where they would make liqueurs by leaving them out in the heat.”

After spotting information about the upcoming world championships on Twitter she decided to enter her creation.

“It was complete coincidence that I saw that the competition was coming up on Twitter but I do know last year’s winner," she added.

The sloe gin making process as well as the world championship-winning recipe are detailed in her blog at severnbites.com.