Category Archives for "Blog"

Batch #5 Results

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For batch #5, I forgot to filter the liquor so I know this will be on the rough side. I consider it almost a wasted batch if I don’t filter the liquor because the flavor is so much harsher than filtered batches. The color is on the darker side as my batches go, closer to some mass-produced versions I’ve seen. The flavor is first very sweet and lemony but quickly turns to the unfiltered Everclear punch that contorts your face. Since I’ve discovered the difference in smoothness due to filtering it’s almost unforgivably rough tasting. Unless I forget I’ll never use unfiltered Everclear again and this is a lesson that should help.

Liquor: Two 750ml bottles of Everclear 151

Liquor filtration: None

Lemons: 17 Non-organic, waxed and scrubbed

Days peels and liquor rested: 66

Simple Syrup – Cups Sugar: 4, Cups Water: 5

Days syrup rested with infusion: 30

Final filtration: 4x

Batch #4 Results

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I haven’t had a batch to post about in a while and now I have several. Here is the first of the new crop:

Liquor: Two 750ml bottles of Everclear 151

Liquor filtration: 5x

Lemons: 17 Non-organic, waxed and scrubbed

Days peels and liquor rested: 63

Simple Syrup – Cups Sugar: 3, Cups Water: 5

Days syrup rested with infusion: 30

Final filtration: 4x

The big difference in this batch was the use of less sugar, I used one cup less than normal to see if I could reduce the overly sweet taste of my standard recipe. The smell and color of the finished product looked good, perhaps a bit lighter yellow than normal. The sugar reduction worked, it doesn’t taste sweet now. However, the alcohol is much more apparent in the flavor now. A one cup reduction may have been too much. The next time I’ll try a 1/2 cup reduction. The flavor seems lighter with less sugar, it has some redeeming qualities there but overall it’s just too harsh. It will take a long time in the cellar to make this batch smooth.

Testing the Merits of Organic Lemons

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I started two new batches this week to test whether using organic lemons adds to the flavor or quality of the Limoncello. I have absolutely no doubt that it reduces toxins in the finished product since it’s the outside of the lemon that is used in making the Limoncello. However, I’ve heard it said that using organic lemons produces a much greater lemon flavor so I wanted to put that claim to the test. The differences in the lemons themselves are obvious from the start. The organic lemons were literally about half the size of the normal ones and they had more blemishes on the surface as you can see from the photos. The first picture shows the organic lemons. As a result of the smaller size, I used 23 organic lemons and 15 normal lemons to get roughly the same quantity of zest.

I added the zest to two separate containers filled with 100 proof Smirnoff vodka that I filtered 5 times. You can tell that the organic lemons are producing a much darker colored infusion after only a couple days. The normal lemon infusion looks like they injected the lemons with chartreuse by comparison, pretty amazing difference. These two are batches 7 and 8, I’ll keep you updated on their progress.

Arancello (Orange-cello) Test

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I made this test batch using the zest of 10 oranges and otherwise the same methodology as the lime-infused batch, 3 weeks infusion with a bottle of 100 proof Smirnoff vodka filtered four times and simple syrup with 2.5 cups water and 2 cups sugar. This batch was easy to distinguish from Limoncello from the color alone. It wasn’t bright orange but it was orange enough to tell.

It had a nice aroma of orange as well but the flavor didn’t pan out nearly as well as the lime batch. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the batch I made with orange last year, but it isn’t great. It’s overly sweet (my fault) and the orange flavor tastes like orange peel rather than oranges. This makes perfect sense but I don’t know why lemons and limes don’t seem to have the same issue. It may be the type of oranges I’m using, I’m not sure. I did use organic oranges, which should have been better than normal ones. Not a successful test. If anyone has an idea why, let me know.