Category Archives for "Blog"

Historical Follies: Things that didn’t work

Blog

I’ve tried plenty of things to this point and many of them were failures so I’ll share them with you lest you repeat my mistakes.

Liquor selection – Avoid 190 proof grain alcohol, it can work if you cut it with vodka, but then what’s the point?

Filtration – To speed the process, I’ve made unfiltered batches. No one needs Limoncello that badly, filter it.

Not letting it rest – It’s really hard to be patient, especially with your first few batches, but exercise as much patience as you can. It’s possible to make a batch of Limoncello start to finish in 10 days, but again, no one needs Limoncello that badly. The faster you make it, the worse it will turn out regardless of the ingredients.

Adding ingredients – My only real run in with this was taking a recipe that called for vanilla bean to make the Limoncello smoother. The result was a liquor that tasted like vanilla. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t Limoncello either. Using less might make this better but vanilla is a potent flavor.

The Inaugural Post

Blog

In this first post I’d like to explain what this site is all about. About two years ago I took a trip to Italy, which remains the highlight of my life’s travels. One of my discoveries on that trip was how wonderful Limoncello is as an after-dinner drink, or just as a nice summer beverage in general. After returning home to the States, my father-in-law described to me how he made his own Limoncello at home and I’ve been making my own ever since. Limoncello is one of the few beverages that you can make at home more cheaply than you can generally buy it, a point I will try to prove in a later post.

I’ve made some really bad Limoncello using recipes of my own device and ones I’ve seen on the internet. I’m publishing this blog to help other Limoncello newbies avoid my mistakes and to document my (now much more rigorous) search for the perfect Limoncello recipe. I plan to post the results of all of my experiments going forward and I will summarize my past attempts as well. I also plan to review all of the brands of Limoncello that I can get my hands on in stores just for the sake of comparison. I welcome any feedback or tips from your own experience and I hope that this blog is a useful tool in your own pilgrimage to create the perfect Limoncello.