Homegrown Limoncello: Preserving a Precious Meyer Lemon Crop

It is early winter and our Meyer lemon tree is now indoors in a sunny window, to overwinter until mid-spring. The lemons are so ripe and perfumed that we smell them the second we walk into the apartment. This year, I decided to make limoncello with their aromatic zest. It will be ready for an ice-cold toast at New Year, and its bottle will live in the freezer for next summer’s outdoor evenings. (I use the peeled lemons’ juice to add to salt preserved-lemons, but that is another story.)

Here’s how I make limoncello, using fruit that took over half a year to ripen, from blossoms that smelled like heaven seven months ago.

Our Meyer lemon tree had a rough season outdoors, and as a result the lemons are smaller than usual. There were a couple of dry months during a very hot summer, and I also re-potted it while it was in fruit (I realized that the small tree was root-bound, which was the reason it was drinking so fast and then staying parched). I was a bad lemon parent. (But at least it wasn’t overwatered, a practice that leads to even worse long-term decline.)

One of the satisfactions in growing your own citrus is knowing what is on it and in it. There are no waxy coatings on the zest and I never spray the fruit with pesticides (I do use Neem oil on the leaves to control scale insects when they appear, which they do without fail: See my story about growing indoor citrus for more care tips.)

Limoncello is a Sicilian liqueur that is sipped as a digestif at the end of meals in small, cold increments. It is a simple but heady combination of lemon zest, high proof clear grain alcohol, water, and sugar. Many recipes call for Everclear or another super-high proof spirit, but I use a classic vodka, as well as less water in the sugar syrup that is added later.

While I associate the drinking of  limoncello with summer and long lunches under the shade of a tall tree in a garden far away, the time to make it is now: it is citrus season. We may be used to year-round lemons at supermarkets, but if you grow your own, or relish the enjoyment of a local crop, this limoncello-making ritual is sweet (well, sweetly sour) and can be appreciated many months later.

Limoncello is also delicious added to savory roasting root vegetables, just before they come out of the oven; poured over a lemon granita or sorbe; or drizzled over a still-warm cake.

Limoncello

My recipe uses slightly less sugar than some, since I appreciate the extra, lemony kick in each mouthful. It is still plenty sweet. You may of course use another type of lemon to make the liqueur, and if they are store-bought, scrub them to remove any residues. Dry well. If you have an excess of oranges, you can make arancello in the same way, using their zest.

• 7 Meyer lemons
• 2 cups vodka
• 7 ounces sugar
• 1 cup water

Peel or microplane the zest from the lemons, taking care to remove as little bitter pith as possible. Pour 2 cups of vodka into a clean jar and add the lemon zest. Cover, and leave out at room temperature for two weeks.

After two weeks, strain the liquid, which will now be a pale yellow. In a saucepan, mix the sugar and water and bring to a boil to make a syrup. When it is completely cool, mix it with the lemon extract. Decant into a bottle, and keep in the freezer. Serve in small, chilled glasses.

See also:

• The Citrus Tree I Didn’t Know I Needed: Kumquat
• Healthy Candy: Dried Naked Citrus Is Your New Addictive Snack
• Yuzu Syrup: It’s a Tea, a Marmalade, and a Tonic