Homemade Italian Limoncello Recipe

I am not Italian, but I have been living in Italy since 2004. My wife instead is Italian, and so her family (50% Venetian, 50% Sicilian). On August 2006, we made a trip to Sicily, where I met some of her Sicilian relatives. There I met her wonderful "Zia Maria" (Aunt Maria), and after having this excellent dinner, she offered us some homemade lemon liqueur: that's right, the "Limoncello"

So, you have never heard of it? No problem! I am not just going to tell you what it is, I am telling you how you can easily make your own Limoncello! Thanks to Zia Maria that gave me her secret limoncello recipe (oops, I think it's not secret anymore) now I do it every year. I actually came up with a new cool and original name for it. Since my name is Luis, the Limoncello I make is called "Luismoncello" :-)

The first thing we have to do is take the lemons, wash them with a lot of water and peel the zest off.

The lemons, as I told you before, must be yellow and not green. Another important thing to remember is that when you peel the zest off, you should stay away from the pith (the white part); we will just use the colored part, because the pith will give a bitter flavor to our Limoncello.

I usually use a vegetable peeler for that, but you can use anything you want.

I know, peeling off the zest of those 8 lemons was not funny at all. Do not worry because the rest is a piece of cake!

Now we need to put the lemon zest inside the alcohol, and let it macerate for about 48 to 72 hours. You may probably want to separate the alcohol in two bottles, otherwise the zests will not fit.

Put a cap on those bottles, they have to be closed hermetically, and keep them away from sunlight. And now, we wait...

Zia Maria's Italian limoncello recipe continues like this: Put the 75cl of water to boil on a pot, turn the flame off and then add the sugar.

We just want the water and the sugar to mix together, we are not making any caramel here.

Let it cool for about 5 to 10 minutes and then add the alcohol from our macerated lemon zests to the pot. You can use a strainer, since we do not want the zests here.

Combine everything, put it in bottles and wait for it to cool off.

Once is cool, put those bottles in the freezer. Limoncello is best served chilled after a meal as a digestive liqueur.

Here's my custom version of Limoncello, or as I said before: the "Luismoncello" :-)

Buon Limoncello!