Thursday, December 25, 2008

Limoncello

My Italian host family used to talk about making Limoncello. They insisted one had to use lemons from Sicily. I used Lemons from the natural foods co-op. They're probably not from Sicily, but they're organic. I gave them a good scrub anyway.
Martha Stewart's recipe is pretty straightforward. I used Prairie organic vodka (since Everclear is illegal in this state). Make sure not to get any of the pith when peeling lemons, it will make the vodka bitter. I steeped the peel + vodka in large jars for several weeks instead of days.
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All that soaking produces flecks of schmutz, so I used coffee filters and a small funnel to filter the lemon vodka. By the way, I can't wait to experiment with other infused vodkas. 

I used organic sugar for the sugar solution, which isn't totally white. The result is a duller, cloudier Limoncello, but still delicious.
One of these bottles had to be re-filtered due to rogue flecks. I tried to ship a bottle to my brother in LA and learned the U.S. Postal Service prohibits the shipping of alcohol. Who knew?

1 comment:

Ellen said...

Here's a how-to for skittles-infused vodka.
http://mixthatdrink.com/skittles-vodka-tutorial/