Limoncello
Limoncello is made from the zest only — no lemon juice goes into it at all. The essential oils that give the liqueur its colour and scent sit exclusively in the yellow layer of the peel. The white pith beneath it is a source of bitterness, and that is what separates a good limoncello from a failed one. The work is thirty minutes of paring and two weeks of waiting.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Paring the peel 30 min
- Steeping 14400 min
- Syrup 20 min
- Resting 5750 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneScrub the lemons in boiling water
Scald the lemons and scrub them with a brush. The peel is the only ingredient here, so the wax and fungicides on shop fruit have to come off. Unwaxed lemons with thick, ridged skin are best — they carry the most oil.
Ingredients: 10 pcs lemons · 1000 ml neutral spirit
Pare very thinly, with no white pith
Pare with a vegetable peeler, taking only the yellow layer. Hold each strip up to the light: if you see white, scrape it off with a knife. Pith gives a bitterness that does not fade with time and is the one unfixable mistake in this recipe.
Ingredients: 10 pcs lemons · 1000 ml neutral spirit
Yellow layer only, no white on the underside.Cover with spirit and leave 10 days
Put the peel in a large jar, cover with the spirit and seal. Keep it 10 days somewhere dark, shaking once a day. The alcohol takes up the oils and turns deep yellow, while the peel pales and goes brittle — the sign that it has given up most of its oils.
Ingredients: 10 pcs lemons · 1000 ml neutral spirit
Spirit yellow, peel pale and brittle — it is ready.Boil the syrup and cool it completely
Boil the water with the sugar for 5 minutes, until the syrup is clear, and cool to room temperature. A litre of syrup takes 1–2 hours to cool, so it is easiest to make it the day before the steeping ends. Warm syrup poured into the infusion would drive off some of the aromatics and alcohol — the syrup must be genuinely cold.
Ingredients: 700 g sugar · 1000 ml water
Strain the peel and combine with the syrup
Strain the infusion through a cloth-lined sieve and mix with the cold syrup. The mixture turns milky yellow — this is normal and is called the ouzo effect: the oils come out of solution as the alcohol content drops. That is how it should look.
Ingredients: 10 pcs lemons · 1000 ml neutral spirit
Turning milky yellow — the ouzo effect, not a fault.Rest four days and freeze
Bottle it (you will have about 2.4 litres of liqueur) and leave for 4 days so the alcohol and syrup marry. Freshly mixed, limoncello tastes of spirit and sugar separately. Store it in the freezer and serve ice cold in chilled glasses.
Ingredients: 10 pcs lemons · 1000 ml neutral spirit
Before you start
Adjusting the strength
A litre of 95% spirit with this much syrup gives a liqueur of about 38–39%. Want it milder, like shop-bought limoncello? Add another 500 ml of cold boiled water — that gives about 32%. With 50% vodka, make half the syrup (350 g sugar, 500 ml water) — it comes out around 29%, but less intense, because lower-proof alcohol extracts fewer oils.
Sorrento lemons
Traditionally it is made with lemons from around Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast — large, with very thick, ridged skin. Elsewhere, look for unwaxed lemons with a visibly rough surface; smooth thin-skinned ones carry noticeably less oil.
The same method, other fruit
Orange peel gives arancello, mandarin gives mandarinetto, and lime a sharper, more aromatic version. The proportions stay the same — only the fruit changes, and with orange it is worth extending the steeping to 14 days.