Limoncello: 2 recipes at home

The Italian folk liqueur limoncello is not only possible, but even necessary to prepare at home. Making limoncello with your own hands is more than easy. At the same time, no one will stop you from adjusting the strength and sweetness of the drink to your own taste. In addition, you will be completely confident in the absence of various preservatives and emulsifiers that are usually used by industrial manufacturers.

Learn about limoncello much more.

Tips before you start

1. Undiluted alcohol is best for limoncello (ideally, of course, grape alcohol, although grain alcohol is also good). Actually, in Southern Italy, the small homeland of the drink, only the above-mentioned substance is used.

2. Other culinary and distillery sites offer recipes for vodka and moonshine limoncello, but it will be much more difficult to implement them.

   In the first case, either you will have to significantly reduce the strength of the drink by using the amount of water calculated for pure alcohol, or significantly reduce the volume of the latter, as a result of which you will have to cook a rather difficult to prepare thick syrup, which, moreover, will be very difficult to mix with the vodka base.

   In the second case, you have to worry about the quality of homemade distillate. The slightest presence of fusel oils in the moonshine used can irrevocably spoil the taste and smell of the future liquor.

Limoncello: the original recipe

To begin with, we will focus on how to make limoncello according to the most canonical recipe. As mentioned above, the amount of sugar and water can be varied to your liking. If you follow the proportions given here, the result will be a liqueur whose strength will be approximately 35-38 degrees, and the amount of sugar will be 30 g per 100 ml of liquid, which in the case of a homemade variety of the drink is considered almost a classic.

List of ingredients

1. Ripe aromatic lemons - 1 kg

2. Food alcohol (95-96 degrees) - 500 ml

3. Non-carbonated drinking water - 650 ml

4. Sugar - 500 g

The method of preparation

1. Pour boiling water over the lemons. Remove the wax used to store the fruit with a vegetable brush or a thick, rough cloth.

2. Carefully remove the yellow part of the zest with a vegetable peeler (if the white part of the peel gets into the drink, the liqueur will be bitter).

3. Put the peel in a jar, pour alcohol and close the lid (peeled lemons can be safely used for other household purposes). Keep the container in a cool, dark place for a week, shaking it vigorously several times a day.

4. Strain the alcohol through cheesecloth and squeeze the zest into it. Then, pour the zest with water and leave it in this form for two hours. After that, strain the water thoroughly and use it to make syrup.

5. The syrup consisting of water and sugar can be prepared according to the classics: keep it on low heat until the crystals are completely dissolved, without bringing the substance to a boil; or you can boil it, carefully removing the foam (the second method will slightly increase the shelf life of your drink, ridding it of various undesirable microorganisms). Proportions and options you can find the recipe for sugar syrup here.

6. Cool the resulting syrup to room temperature and mix with alcohol infusion (clouding of the drink will only indicate the absence of artificial emulsifiers in it). Strain and bottle the almost finished liquor, then let it mature in the refrigerator for a week, shaking the containers vigorously once a day. In the future, the drink should also be stored in the refrigerator.

Recipe for creamy limoncello

The main trick to making this drink is to use skimmed, at most two percent natural (not powdered) milk to avoid its curdling when it comes into contact with alcohol. If you believe some particularly experienced alkomakers, such milk can be mixed in a 1:1 ratio with cream absolutely painlessly. But, to be honest, I would not risk it.

List of ingredients

1. Lemons - 10 pcs.

2. Alcohol - 750 ml

3. Milk - 1.9 liters

4. Sugar - 1 kg

5. Vanilla - ½ pod (can be replaced with 20-30 g of vanilla sugar or 2 tsp.). spoons of vanilla extract).

The method of preparation

1. Until the moment of straining the alcoholic infusion and squeezing the zest inclusive, you can be guided by according to the previous recipe.

2. Next, you should immediately throw away the squeezed zest and start preparing the syrup, which includes: milk, granulated sugar and half a vanilla pod. At the same time, it is necessary to boil the milk over low heat until the sugar is completely dissolved.

3. After that, cool the syrup to room temperature, strain it and combine it with the alcohol base by pouring lemon alcohol into the milk-sugar solution.

4. Mix the result very thoroughly, filter once again and pour into bottles without filling them to the brim.

5. The finished liquor is stored in the refrigerator for up to three months.

P.S. Some craftsmen suggest not bothering with the syrup, but simply mixing the alcohol base and a can or two of condensed milk in a blender, adding vanilla sugar... But consider that I did not tell you this.

A few words in conclusion

Over the 100 years of the liqueur's existence, several noteworthy modifications have appeared in its homeland, which are prepared according to the same principle. Among them:

1. Fragoncello - infused with crushed strawberries;

2. Meloncello - use the pulp of cantaloupe melon;

3. Pistacciocello - prepared using crushed pistachio kernels.

There is also a Sicilian limoncello made from oranges, or more precisely, arancello. However, it is prepared in a slightly different way, so it should be considered as a separate drink, although related to our liqueur.

Update: 16.07.2017

Category: Liqueurs and Tinctures