Limoncello

Dear Shayne,

As I reported in October and January, we wanted to make limoncello for Christmas gifts, but our lime tree ended up being more prolific than the lemon tree, so we made "lime-cello."

Some of the lemons have since showed up, and I have also gotten contributions from my friends Jan (Hi, Jan!) and Hollie (Hi, Hollie!) so I currently have 3 batches in progress. The first of which will be ready to bottle next week. Whee!


Meanwhile, let me tell you all about my potential Limoncello Fail...

I wanted to experiment using two different kinds of vodka: Smirnoff (which I used in the original lime-cello) and Absolut. A full batch is 2 bottles of vodka, so I split up my lemons and made two half-batches: one Absolut, and one Smirnoff. (I'm so clever.)

Once the lemon zest gets mixed in with the vodka, that concoction sits for 45 days before the simple syrup is added.

Turns out, 45 days is enough time for me to completely forget that I was making half of a batch, so I made a full batch of simple syrup and dumped that right on into one of my half-batches! (Did you hear me yelling "FUUUUDGGGEE" from there?) (Only, it was not "fudge.")

What to do? What to do? I could not remove the syrup and I didn't want to waste that batch, so I went ahead and mixed both of my half-batches together. Kind of destroys my little experiment, but I'm sure it will all turn out. I mean, it's vodka, lemons, and sugar -- how bad could it be? (I am hoping these are not words to regret...)

Meanwhile, I should have anticipated this, as it's a chronic problem of mine: "Oh, I'll just make half the batch... half of this, half of that... what was I doing? Right... cooking! Recipe says 1 cup? Okay! In it goes!" Grrr.

love,
kelly