Limoncello

Before telling you how I made my limoncello, I want to express special thanks to Alessandra Malozzi´s mother. On a nice fall afternoon in Umbria we enjoyed a glass of limoncello in the tastefully decorated sitting room of her beautiful country house. I told her that I almost got poisened by my homemade limoncello and then this lovely lade told me how to prepare it the right way and showed me how to peel the lemons. I am very grateful.

The first time I tasted limoncello was in the previous age in a small Italian village. My neighbor – later one of my best friends – said I had to try it and respectfully spelled its name as if it was liquid gold....l.i.m.o.n.c.e.l.l.o..

We had a cheerful evening with a lot of Italians but agreed we would only drink limoncello in the weekends or on special occasions. Somehow, there was a special occasion nearly every night.

The best limoncello you get when you use lemons from Sorrento. But I think all biological lemons will do the job. Make sure they´re biological, for the skin may not contain any pesticide what so ever. And even then, scrub them until they´re absolutely clean.

Needed:

8 lemons

1 liter of alcohol 95° (I bring it from Italy)

700 grams of sugar

800 ml. water

Peel the lemons and be careful only to use the yellow parts. Put them in a sterilized yar and add the alcohol. Carefully close the yar and leave it in a dark, dry spot for 15 days.

On day 16, mix the water with the sugar and let it boil for a few minutes, so that the sugar has melted away completely. Let it cool down.

Mix the sugarwater with the lemonmixture, stir well.

Then filter it two times until you have a clear, yellow liquid. 

Poor it into sterilized bottles and put them in a dark, cool dry spot.

Serve it from the freezer.

Bonusrecipe:

Lemon-orange marmalade

And then, I had four peeled lemons that I did not want to throw away. I pressed them, added the skin of an orange (and this time too, don´t use the white parts). I pressed the orange too and let the lemon juice, the orange juice and the skin simmer at low heat for about 15 minutes.

Then filter it, poor it back into the pan. Add the right amount of jelly sugar (indications on the package) make it boil and poor it into sterilized jars.