Thursday, April 9, 2009

They Call Me Mellow Yellow – Chillin With The ‘Cello

Yep, that’s right folks!
My patience wore out and I am finishing up the Limoncello. I was going to wait 45 days, but the lemon zest is white now, so I am assuming they have given their all to the alcohol.
Syrup time…..


400g Granulated Sugar (Sorry, but I did measure by weight)
16 oz Water

This is what I am starting with for 2 reasons:
  • My water content is higher due to the 75.5% Grain alcohol that I had to use.
  • Meyer lemons are sweeter than Eureka or Sorrento.
If I was using Eureka lemons and 75.5% alcohol, I would use 500g sugar and 16 oz water.
If I had 95.5% I would use 24 oz of water, maybe a little more, to keep the ending percentage around 25%-30%.
After all, this is suppose to be a liqueur, and should not be up in the 40% like harder liquors (i.e. Vodka, Gin)

Anyway, boil your sugar syrup for about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool.
Strain out the Lemon Zest and cardamom seeds, and move the liquid back into your steeping jar.

Once the syrup is cooled, add to the steeping jar and shake to mix.

Let sit for at least 1 hour, before Bottling.

I found some great bottles at Marshall's, made out of Recycles glass.. Awesome!!

Bottle your Limoncello and promptly toss in the freezer. Oh, the center one, I added just a little ice cold water to show the reaction of cold water on Limoncello... It turns cloudy like ouzo

Limoncello is like revenge, best served Ice Cold… ;)

Cin Cin!!
~~
Limoncello on Foodista

6 comments:

  1. Oooh!This brings back a lot of memories!I love limoncello! Please allow us to direct Foodista readers to this post, just embed the small widget here. Love those bottles! Cheers!

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  2. Fantastic! oh man, I have GOT to do this. I love the bottles, wow, they are perfect.

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  3. Thanks for putting up the widget, I'm looking for some Meyer lemons to make a batch later, hope I get some luck finding bottles as gorgeous as yours :)

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  4. Alisa - Sorry bout that, I was going to do it before, and then I got bogged down in other things and forgot... oops. I found the bottles about 3 weeks ago at either Marshalls or T J Maxx. You have to let me know how yours turns out.. :)

    DD - Thank you, The Limoncello is very perfumy.. I am sure that it will mellow a little bit over time, but you get hit with sweet, then alcohol mellowing into a nice exotic floral lemon that hints at an elusive sourness... The cardamom really makes it smell exotic... I am extremely pleased with it.

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  5. Mmmmm, boozy. I want to try this stuff, I love lemon.

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  6. this is dangerous for me to know how to do since I love the stuff so much!

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