I am not Italian, but I have been living in Italy for almost 6 years. My wife instead is from Italy, and so her family (50% Venetian, 50% Sicilian). 4 years ago, we made a trip to Sicily, where I met some of her Sicilian relatives. There I met her wonderful “Zia Maria” (Aunt Maria), and after having this excellent dinner, she offered us some homemade authentic italian liquor:

that’s right, that authentic italian liquor was the “Limoncello”

So, you have never heard of it? No problem! I am not just going to tell you what it is, I am telling you how you can easily prepare your own Limoncello! Thanks to Zia Maria that gave me her secret Homemade Italian Limoncello recipe (oops, I think it’s not secret anymore) now I do it every year. I actually came up with a new original name for it. Since my name is Luis, the Limoncello I make is called “Luismoncello”

“Zia Maria” Homemade Italian Limoncello Original Recipe
The Ingredients

* 8 organic yellow lemons.
* A bottle of 75cl of pure grain alcohol (from 70% to 90%). Everclear should be your best option (if allowed in your State)
* 3 1/2 cups of white Sugar (about 25 oz)
* 75 cl of Water.

Peel that zest off! (and be aware of the pith)

The first thing we have to do to prepare our Homemade Italian Limoncello is take the lemons and peel the zest off.

The lemons, as I told you before, must be yellow and not green.

Another important thing to remember is that when you peel the zest off, you should stay away from the pith (the white part); we will just use the colored part, because the pith will give a bitter flavor to our authentic italian liquor.

I usually use a vegetable peeler for that, but you can use anything you want.

Now we need Alcohol!

I know, peeling off the zest of those 8 lemons was pretty boring. Do not worry because the rest is a piece of cake!

Now we need to put the lemon zest inside the alcohol, and let it macerate for about 3 days. You may probably want to separate the alcohol in two bottles, otherwise the zests will not fit in one bottle.

Put a cap on those bottles, they have to be closed hermetically, and keep them away from sunlight. And now, we wait…

Add Sugar, mix and … that’s it!
Zia Maria’s Homemade Italian Limoncello recipe continues like this: Put the 75cl of water to boil on a pot, turn the flame off and then add the sugar.

We just want the water and the sugar to mix together, we are not making any caramel here.

Let it cool for about 5 to 10 minutes and then add the alcohol from our macerated lemon zests to the pot. You can use a strainer, since we do not want the zests here.

Combine everything, put it in bottles and wait for it to cool off.

Once is cool, put those bottles in the freezer. This authentic italian liquor is best served chilled after a meal as a digestive liquor.

Buon Limoncello!

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