Nocino
A liqueur from Modena made with green walnuts picked in June, before the shell has formed. Tradition ties the picking to St John's Eve, but what counts is the state of the nut: once the shell starts to harden inside, it can no longer be cut and the infusion turns woodier and rougher. It is the green husk that gives nocino its black colour and bitter-spiced flavour. Everything else is waiting — forty days of maceration and at least two months of ageing in the bottle.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Cutting the walnuts 40 min
- Maceration 57600 min
- Syrup 20 min
- Ageing 86400 min
Step by step
0 / 7 donePick the walnuts around midsummer
Pick the walnuts in the second half of June (in a cooler year or a cooler climate often not until early July), while entirely green and able to be cut straight through with a knife, with no shell resisting. That is the only test that counts — if the knife meets a hard shell, it is too late.
Ingredients: 30 pcs green walnuts · 1000 ml neutral spirit · 2 pcs cinnamon · 8 pcs cloves · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pcs vanilla
Quarter the walnuts wearing gloves
Wash the walnuts and cut each into four, gloves absolutely required. Juice from the green husk stains skin brown for up to two weeks and no soap removes it — not an exaggeration but experience.
Ingredients: 30 pcs green walnuts · 1000 ml neutral spirit · 2 pcs cinnamon · 8 pcs cloves · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pcs vanilla
Quarters and gloves — the juice stains skin for two weeks.Cover with spirit and spices
Put the quarters in a large jar, add the cinnamon, cloves, lemon peel and split vanilla and pour in spirit to cover the walnuts by 3 cm. Seal and set aside somewhere dark.
Ingredients: 30 pcs green walnuts · 1000 ml neutral spirit · 2 pcs cinnamon · 8 pcs cloves · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pcs vanilla
Spirit 3 cm above the walnuts, jar tightly sealed.Macerate forty days, shaking
Keep the jar 40 days in the dark, shaking every other day. The liquid darkens from green through brown to nearly black. Those are the husk tannins — the longer it goes, the darker and more bitter.
Ingredients: 30 pcs green walnuts · 1000 ml neutral spirit · 2 pcs cinnamon · 8 pcs cloves · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pcs vanilla
After forty days the liquid is nearly black.Strain through muslin
Strain the infusion through a sieve lined with four layers of muslin, pressing the walnuts. The straining must be thorough: husk particles left in the bottle keep releasing tannins, and over time the liqueur turns unpleasantly bitter.
Ingredients: 30 pcs green walnuts · 1000 ml neutral spirit · 2 pcs cinnamon · 8 pcs cloves · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pcs vanilla
Boil the syrup and cool it
Boil the sugar with the water, stirring until dissolved, and cool completely. Hot syrup poured into spirit would evaporate part of it and shift the proportions — nocino should end up around 30%.
Ingredients: 700 g sugar · 500 ml water
Combine and rest two months
Mix the infusion with the syrup, bottle it and leave somewhere dark for at least two months. Freshly mixed nocino is harsh and disjointed; only ageing makes it smooth.
Ingredients: 700 g sugar · 500 ml water
Before you start
The picking date is not superstition
Tradition names the night of 23 June, but what matters is the state of the nut, not the calendar. Test with a knife: if it passes through the centre without meeting a hard shell, the walnuts will do — usually a two-week window.
How strong
The maceration usually uses 95% spirit diluted to about 60% — roughly 630 ml of spirit topped up to a litre with cooled boiled water. Strong alcohol draws aroma and colour from the husks better. After the syrup the finished nocino sits around 30%. Vodka at 40% works too, but extracts less and the finished liqueur will only be about 20%.
The older the better
Nocino improves with time and after twelve months is markedly mellower than at two. Many home makers open their June nocino only in winter, and some wait a full year. At this strength and sugar level it keeps for years.