Under the Italian Influence

At our house, September means it’s time to start planning for the holidays. (Those of you who are crafty know what I mean.) My particular holiday craft is making limoncello, an Italian, lemon-flavored liquor that takes weeks to prepare. Sadly, I don’t live in a lemon grove in California nor do I live in a state that allows heritage licenses for producing my own grain alcohol. Nonetheless, I have a great recipe thanks to my days organizing an Italian cultural organization and one of the Italian-American friends I made there.  (Grazie mille, Michele!)

Italians and non-Italians  alike love to debate the authenticity of Italian cultural memes; and Italian cuisine is ripe for such discussions. Italian recipes are notoriously difficult to translate, due to ambiguities in measurements and differences between what is recorded in the recipe and what is actually done in the kitchen. Not surprisingly, those of us who make limoncello love to compare notes on our different methodologies and flatter one another by stealing ideas. Though we may not agree on what is authentic, everyone pays proper respect to the fact it is homemade. There are a lot of authenticity points awarded for “fatto a mano” – i.e. made by hand.

I hope you are able to try making your own limoncello with the recipe here.  Even if you don’t have the Italian air and water to make your limoncello sweeter, I’ve included some notes to help you can make it authentically and uniquely your own.

Farm Diva Limoncello

Makes 2.2 liters.

15 lemons, well scrubbed

2 (750 ml) 100-proof bottles of vodka

4 cups sugar

5 cups bottled water, still

1 gallon glass jar

Lemon zest sitting in alcohol ready to rest for 40 days.

Step One:

• Wash the lemons with a vegetable brush and hot water to remove any residue of pesticides or wax; pat the lemons dry.

• Pour one bottle (750 mL) of vodka into a 1-gallon jar.

• Adding the lemon zest to the vodka as you go, carefully zest the lemons with a zester or vegetable peeler so there is no white pith on the peel. The white pith is very bitter.

• Cover the jar and let sit at room temperature for forty days in a cool dark place. There is no need to stir. All you have to do is wait. As the limoncello sits, the vodka will slowly take on the flavor and deep yellow color of the lemon zest.

Step Two (after your alcohol has sat for 40 days):

The syrup and additional alcohol added.

• In a large saucepan, combine the sugar and water.

• Cook until thickened, approximately 5 to 7 minutes.

• Let the syrup cool before adding it to the limoncello mixture.

• Add to the limoncello mixture from Step One.

• Add the additional bottle of vodka. (Don’t forget this one. I sometimes do and have to add it a few days later.)

• Allow to rest for another 40 days.

Ready for straining. I use paper coffee filters.

Step Three:

• After the rest period, strain and bottle. Discard the zest.

• Sip, slowly. Enjoy.

Proof

Most people who have shared their recipes with me use grain alcohol as the base for their limoncello. I believe this is actually the most authentic method, but it has a bite to it. I have cut the grain alcohol with vodka, but eventually I switched to only using vodka. In my opinion, the vodka is much smoother and I’m not sure if anyone needs to be drinking 190-proof alcohol.

Even with lower alcohol content, the vodka base is dangerous because it is so smooth it is like drinking candy. One thinks, “Oh that was nice.  I’ll have another,” before one realizes that one has had quite enough.

Despite my preference for vodka over grain alcohol, I would happily use grain alcohol if I had my own still. Alas, not that’s not legal here.

Flavoring

This year I am going to depart from my own recipe by adding a vanilla bean to the second stage. One of friends makes hers with vanilla that not only mellows the flavor further, but gives it a little more complexity. I encourage first time makers to use only the lemons and syrup for flavoring, but by all means feel free to make a small batch with your own hint of something else.

Look closely for the pores to make sure you've gotten the peel thin enough.

It is very important that when taking the lemon zest you get as little as possible of the bitter, white pith beneath the surface. You only want the yellow part of the lemon peel. If you are using a vegetable peeler, you can gauge the quality of the peel by flipping it over to look at the pith side. It should be as yellow as possible darkened, damp-looking spots where the pores are located.

Timing

The shortest time period I have seen for making limoncello is four weeks, which translates to two weeks for the first stage plus two weeks for the second stage. I prefer to use a total of 80 days or 40 days for each stage. The longer you wait the more lemon flavor you extract and the mellower the limoncello becomes.

If you have no patience whatsoever you can make lemon infused vodka by soaking the lemon peels in vodka for only 24 hours. Strain the zest out as soon as the 24 hours passes, so it doesn’t turn bitter. No sugar or syrup is added.

Leftovers

When you’re done zesting your lemons, you’ll still have whole lemons left. I suggest squeezing the lemons and freezing the juice for future use. I freeze them for one or two ounce servings so I can have small amounts for lemon flavoring when cooking or combine several to have an instant glass of lemonade.

The lemon rinds that are left after juicing are perfect compost material, as are the peels that are discarded after straining in the end of the process.