Limoncello Recipe

I had a problem. A problem shaped in a bottle. To be precise, a Smirnoff-shaped bottle.

More specifically, I couldn’t get rid of it.

It’s not the fancy kind of Smirnoff. It’s the red one, perhaps sub $30 for a bottle. And it’s been plaguing me ever since my brief infatuation with penne alla vodka from a few years ago.

I’d retrieved it from my liquor cabinet during house parties, hoping that a pour for each guest would clear out the bottle (it hadn’t, for everybody declined). I’d introduced the bottle into the freezer, hoping that a well-chilled bottle would improve its disposition (it hadn’t, for the cheap vodka inside remained… well, cheap vodka.) I’d brought it down a step from the freezer to the fridge when I needed freezer space, then after all that, it somehow wound up back into the cabinet where it came from.


It’s only when I heard of homemade limoncello that I realised I’d found a wonderful use for this vodka. And a few months later, upon opening the jar, confirmed the vodka’s delightful transformation into limoncello.

It’s a simple two-step process. Step One involves zesting eight lemons and steeping the zest in a bottle of vodka for at least 45 days. Step Two, to strain the zest away and add simple syrup. There’s a great deal of flexibility that you can have, and I left mine on Step One for about 5 months before I got around to opening the jar. (Life gets in the way.)

The sum, as they say, is far greater than the component of its parts. The simple ingredients and steps didn’t prepare me for the fragrance as I filtered the zest away: the sunny liquor that laid within was bright and intoxicating, like kisses, flowers, and the smell of summer.

Recipe

Get the Limoncello Recipe here from Limoncello Quest: there is an abridged version, and the long-form. (The long form is worth a read.) 

Serving

Limoncello can kept in the freezer. 

They can be drunk neat, or more commonly on the rocks. I like mine iced, with a dash of angostura bitters and topped with soda water.