...Homemade Rainbows...


Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Ciao Limoncello.....

Well those past bags of lemons have gone to more good use....
This Mama has made one of her favourite liqueurs (in readiness for summer and some serious alfresco eating and playing)....Limoncello!

It is not as traditional (butt kicking) as I would like because here in Australia you cannot buy 150+ proof grain alcohol unless you are planning on leaving the country and therefore grab it duty free....and seeing as that's not happening anytime soon I made mine with 40% vodka (grain alcohol anyway) and it tastes really authentic, just without any super kick which is not a bad thing as you can then easily enjoy more than one glass.

Here's how I made mine.....

Thinly peel 8 or 9 lemons. I used 9 and next time I will use more....the more the better I actually think. Be really careful to avoid the pith as you don't want your drink to be bitter.
Pop it all into a large jar with the alcohol for one week. Shake it every day to help the alcohol suck all the fragrant oils and flavour out of the peel.
After a week it should be quite yellow and the peels should have faded considerable. The higher the alcohol content the better...the more it will "strip" the peels.
I heated 5 cups of water with 3 cups of sugar until the sugar had completely dissolved and then allowed this to cool. Then you strain your alcohol from the peels and add it to this mixture. If you add it while it's hot you will lose a lot of your alcohol to evaporation. Your mixture will probably turn a cloudy yellow at this point...mine didn't but I'm guessing it's because of the lower alcohol content. I'm going to play with this recipe next time and in additon to using more lemons I might try adding less water.

Pour your liquid gold into bottles and store it in the freezer. It will keep nice and thick there.....Yum. This is how it should be drunk....ice cold and syrupy.

It's so summery and so Italian......well I can almost pretend I'm there....

A note on the giveaway:::

I'm going to draw a winner tomorrow....we are off on a whim in search of some tranquility from Thursday.

4 comments:

Kathy said...

Oh yummo! I'll have to give it a go!

Tranquility... ahh, so envious.

Sabrina said...

This sounds too good! I could use a shot of sumer as today is so cold and gray here. Enjoy...bottoms up!

Anonymous said...

roll on summer

Levin said...

hmm sounds absolutely heavenly. i think i will try and make some - although it's hard to imagine it's ever gonna get warm here!'
l
x