It's January, and in Arizona that means that friends and family will soon be sharing bags of citrus. Last year, it seemed like everyone had an abundance of lemons. I made
lemon curd with the lemons Julie brought down from Litchfield Park. My friend, Clay, made lemon curd too, but being an ambitious sort, he also made a big batch of limoncello. He was kind enough to share the finished product and the recipe.
If you're wondering what to do with limoncello, it's traditionally kept in the freezer and served very cold as an after dinner drink. I've also used it in
desserts, and
cocktails.
Thanks to Clay for sharing his method below:
Limoncello
1- 750 ml bottle Everclear, (95% alcohol 190 proof)
1- 750 ml bottle good but not necessarily premium vodka (45% alcohol 80 proof) I used
Smirnoff- triple distilled vodka
15-18 large thick skinned yellow lemons, without scars or blemishes if possible
3 cups distilled water
4 cups pure cane white sugar
1 gallon sized glass jar with a lid (a sun tea jar works well)
STEP 1
Pour Everclear and vodka into gallon jar
Clean lemons of all dirt, and chemicals. Dry off the lemons. Using a potato peeler carefully remove only the yellow part of the skin, making sure no white is on the back of the peels. The white will make the finished liqueur bitter. Try to make the pieces are as large as possible, this aides in the straining process later.
Put the lemon peels in the jar with the alcohol and stir gently, the lemon peels should be covered by the alcohol. Cover the jar tightly and place in a cool dark place for the alcohol to extract the oils from the peels, creating an infusion.
Days 8, 22, 36- gently stir lemon peels and return to cool dark place.
On day 45 scoop out one of the larger peels and test for flexibility. If the peel is flexible enough to bend with out breaking return jar to cool dark place, check in a week, repeat as needed. If the peel breaks then the infusion is ready for step 2. I left mine for about 75 days, mainly due to time constraints.
STEP 2
Tools needed
Slotted spoon
# 4 coffee filters, 1 box should be plenty.
Large mouth funnel with a 1” wide spout
Ladle
Glass pitcher
Dissolve sugar in water and bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat and boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. If using 4- cups of sugar this will give a light syrup consistency. I used 5- cups the first time and liked the slightly heavier syrup consistency.
Using a clean slotted spoon, gently remove the peels from the infusion and discard.
Place an open filter in the funnel and carefully ladle the infusion through the filter and into a glass pitcher, allow it to filter through before ladling more. Replace filter as necessary when the flow through the filter becomes a drip due to the peel debris in the infusion. This can get messy and is time consuming.
When the jar is empty, rinse and dry it.
Repeat the straining process, filtering back into the original jar from the pitcher.
Add cooled syrup, stir gently. Return covered jar to cool dark place and leave it for 40 days to begin the mellowing process that combines the infusion with the syrup to create the limoncello.
STEP 3
Tools needed
Glass bottles that seal tightly.
#2 and #4 coffee filters
Large funnel
Small funnel that will fit into the neck of the bottles
I began by filtering the limoncello through the large funnel and #4 filters into a clean glass pitcher with a spout. Using a smaller funned and #2 filters I then filtered into the glass bottles. I used 16 oz. bottles that are tall and slender with a hexagonal shape and cork stoppers, from glasswarehouse.org. You can use whatever size you can find, just make sure they can be seal tightly. If you use cork stoppers, remember that natural cork breathes, make sure to dip the cork and down the neck of the bottle an inch or so, several times in hot wax after you have corked the bottle to seal the cork. Label and or tag your bottles.
Your limoncello is now ready to enjoy, remember the longer it sits and ages the smoother it becomes. I started mine in March, filtered the first time and added syrup in June with final filtering and bottling in September. I gave it as Christmas gifts.
LABELING
Get as creative as you like.
Suggest how to serve it, give storage guidelines, (keep chilled in freezer until ready to serve). List the ingredients. Perhaps a disclaimer that this liqueur is homemade and for private use only.
This infusion will produce a liqueur that is 45% alcohol by volume.
