Wednesday 19 December 2012

Limoncello

 Limoncello is an Italian lemon liqueur traditionally served ice-cold as an after-dinner digestive. The ingredients are quite simple; lemon zest, alcohol, sugar and water.
 It is important to use organic lemons because the pesticides remain in the skin and that is the only part we use for this recipe.
 Pure alcohol would be the best choice to extract lemon flavors better, even though you can use any other type of alcohol. If you use vodka or some other spirit the taste will be a bit different because it already has a flavor and because they are too high in water to infuse the flavors properly.
Ingredients:
- 8-10 organic lemons
- 1 liter alcohol (95%)
- 1,3 liter water
- 650 grams sugar

1. Rinse and dry the lemons.
2. Peel the lemons with a sharp knife, being careful to use only the yellow part of the peel, as the white part would make it bitter (you don't want that). Tip: squeeze the peeled lemons and freeze the juice.
3. Place the lemon zest and the alcohol in an air tight glass container.
4. Leave it in a cool dark place for a month, or at least 10 days.
5. Shake the jar every now and then to distribute the lemon oil through the alcohol.
6. Stir the water and sugar in a large saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes. Cool completely. (it doesn't have to boil)
7. Strain the alcohol and lemon peel mixture through a sieve into the sugar syrup.
8. Transfer the limoncello to bottles and leave for at least a week before tasting it.

Not a good technique, skip the white part, you don't need it
For me it worked best with a knife
Protect your eyes, you are dealing with pure alcohol here.
Squeeze the lemons.
Freeze the juice to have it on hand.
After 3 weeks in a dark spot
Sugar syrup



I sprayed juice bottles caps because I wanted them neutral, no brand
 For every 100 ml of water you should put 60 g of sugar. You can decide how strong you want your liqueur to be, it depends on the quantity of water. The formula is quite simple,  % alcohol / liquids quantity (water + alcohol).
 My limoncello is 95% / 2,3 liters = 41,3 % alcohol. Approximately it is 40% because some alcohol probably remained in the zest. If you want it to be less strong, just put more water, or if you have 40% alcohol (vodka), put less water.
 Limoncello seems to mellow as it ages, the longer you keep it, the better it gets.

Cheers!

4 comments:

  1. I love, love, LOVE limoncello!

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  2. Yum, this looks and sounds delicious! Very impressive too. You have a great blog, I'm your newest follower!

    XO,
    Catherine
    FEST (food, style, travel)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have never tried that drink before!

    http://initialed.blogspot.com

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