The Limoncello Will Be Ready in 80 Days
by Chris
Fat lemons dangle from most tree branches in Sorrento. If you have traveled there, or anywhere else in southern Italy, or to an ambitious Italian American restaurant, or to your liquor store, chances are you’ve sipped limoncello. If you haven’t, here’s a primer: Limoncello is what, when they’re lucky, those fat lemons become.
In places like Sorrento, the liqueur comes thick in a freezing glass. A sip after dinner, the summer sun now down, and the day’s heat seems a distant memory. Or so I recall the experience from February.
Actually, February is the perfect time to think limoncello. Today, February 14, I stored a jar of grain alcohol and lemon peels in the back of a kitchen cabinet. In 40 days, I will dissolve sugar water into the mixture. It will sit for 40 more days, and then, just before Memorial Weekend, the first weekend at the beach, the liqueur will become limoncello, and I can sip the sour spirit from a freezing glass after days of sun and grill smoke.
Can’t wait to try it!
Chris, we made your recipe for the fennel and apple salad on Super Bowl Sunday and served it with barbecued ribs and chili. Everyone loved it! Love your blog! Hope all is well and you are enjoying Hoboken. Bring some of that limoncello to Stone Harbor so we all can enjoy!
I have always wanted to try limoncello. Great post!
This seems great. I’ve never tried one before.
Glad the salad turned out well. Yes, the limoncello will be at the beach that weekend. There will be about half a gallon, so plenty to go around.
I’m salivating already!
I can’t wait to hear how this turns out! (Or maybe I’ll just try making my own…)
I’m going to have to try your recipe. The one we use lets the lemon peel sit in grain alcohol (everclear) for 2 – 3 weeks (we usually let it go for 4 weeks). Then it is combined with a simple syrup (3-1/2 cups water:4 cups sugar) and can be consumed immediately. Do you know what difference it makes to allow the mixture to sit 40 days after the addition of the sugar? Using your technique I could use a lower proof alcohol, i.e. vodka. Lemoncello goes great with inexpensive champagne. Have you ever tried it with lime? It’s fantastic but we prefer the lemon.
Hi RM,
This batch is my first try at limoncello. Even so, I suspect the second 40-day sit makes a difference. I have gleaned this much from my reading of Italian recipes for limoncello. Also, in a Japanese cookbook I am cooking through, the author lists a recipe for a plum liqueur similar to limoncello, and urges the reader to “store in a dark, cool place without disturbing the bottle for 3 months (about the time it takes for the sugar to dissolve). The liqueur is drinkable at this stage, but tastes even better when matured for at least a year.” His minimum sit time of 3 months is very close to the 80-day “marriage” of limoncello. That the long sit time is practiced across cultures gives it some weight in my eyes. But I guess only time and taste will tell.
-Chris
I, too, am in the process of a limoncello project!
http://comeduemaiali.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/rhapsody-in-yellow/
Cheers!
mmm…limoncello. we always had a few bottles frozen in our freezer growing up. my dad is quite the fan. I think I may have to follow suit and give this a try!
Great coincidence to read your blog since I have just been wondering what to do with loads of left-over lemons from pancake day! I think i’ve found my answer!
Coincidentally, I just booked a trip to Sorrento in May! Although I have traveled throughout Europe, I have not yet been to Italy. I cannot wait to sample the foods as well as try limoncello!
Great blog!