Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, Limoncello!

It's a long weekend. Let's make sunshine in a bottle.

Sorry it’s not a picture of a cute animal, but this is almost as good.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I love limoncello for the summer months — it’s like sunshine in a glass. But I’m far too impatient to let a jar of vodka and lemon peels sit for a month and a half. Today, I’m going to show you a technique to make quality limoncello over a weekend. In the process, we’re going to be playing with the most potent alcohol known to man, because it’s 2025. Let’s make some Weekend Limoncello. Here’s the recipe:

Weekend Limoncello

10 fresh lemons

1 cup granulated sugar

½ tsp citric acid

3 cups water

1 ½ cups Everclear 190

2 stalks lemongrass

Wash all of the lemons with warm water and a coarse dish towel. Peel all the lemons, removing as little white pith as possible from the fruit. Freeze the fruit for later use.

Place the peels in a small sealable glass jar. Add the sugar and citric acid to the jar. Toss the peels in the sugar, making sure all the peels are completely covered with sugar. Let the peels rest 6-8 hours.

Chop the lemongrass into 1” pieces. Place the Everclear and lemongrass in a second sealable glass jar. Let it rest for 6-8 hours.

After the initial resting period, add the Everclear infusion to the lemon peels. Stir thoroughly and let rest a further 8 hours.

Strain the mixture into a sealable bottle. Rinse the solids and glass jar with 1 cup of water. Add the rinse water to the bottle. Add 2 more cups of water and shake thoroughly. Will last 6-8 months in the refrigerator.

Several romantic stories about the origin of limoncello exist, most of which are inextricably tied to the history of lemon-growing in Italy. In reality, we can peg the creation of limoncello as a commercial product to 1988, when Massimo Canale of Capri registered the trademark “Limoncello di Capri” and began producing the yellow liqueur in bulk. I’m quite certain that Italy has combined lemons and booze for centuries, but the lemon liqueur we love isn’t much older than the Internet.

The biggest hack I’m using to speed up our limoncello production uses oleo saccharum. Sugar is a natural desiccant; it rapidly draws out the essential oils from the lemon peels, extracting their flavor and color in just hours. The same process takes months when infusing lemon peels and vodka. The technique dates back to the 18th century, and it’s perfect for limoncello in a hurry.

I wanted to get even more lemon flavor into this bottle, and honestly, I’ve been looking for an excuse to play with Everclear 190. Lemongrass has strong citrus notes like lemon, but it’s earthier and more herbal, much like ginger root. The Flavor Bible listed lemon and lemongrass as a strong match, so I decided to make a quick herbal infusion. I could have let the Everclear and lemongrass sit for another day, but after just eight hours the stalks were looking pale and translucent. The final product has the mellow, relaxed lemon flavor I’d expect from quality limoncello, but also has a complex herbal note that I enjoy. I do think that the final product will mellow and improve over the next week, but it’s very enjoyable right after bottling.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Here’s what the lemon peels look like when you first toss them with sugar…

… and here’s what they look like an hour later. It’s utter magic.

Lemons: The higher the quality of your fruit, the better your end product. Washing the fruit with warm water before peeling should remove any wax used to maintain freshness at the store. I find that a good Y-shaped peeler, like this one from OXO, makes the job far easier. It’s vital that you scrape any white pith off the peels before coating them with sugar. Pith will make the limoncello bitter.

There is, of course, the question of what you can do with 10 denuded lemons once you’ve made the limoncello. Might I suggest a tasty Lemon Drizzle Cake? I do know one thing, however. Do NOT add the lemon juice to the limoncello. It seems like a good idea. It’s not. I attempted this with my first batch. The end result was floor polish — far too acidic to be drinkable.

Sugar: Nothing fancy here, just basic cane sugar. A natural syrup like honey or agave won’t dessicate the lemon peels.

Citric acid: Not necessary, but it should help preserve color and flavor. Don’t worry if you don’t have it.

Water: The amount of water you add to the syrup/infusion mix determines the final proof of your limoncello. Most commercial limoncello is 60 proof, or 30 percent alcohol. Measure the amount of syrup/infusion mix you have once you’ve strained out the solids. I used this calculator to determine the amount of water I needed to hit the desired strength.

Everclear 190: To be very clear, this stuff is 95 percent pure alcohol. Don’t even try to drink it. Before I could buy it, I had to fill out a form at the liquor store promising I wouldn’t drink it. Using a lower, more sane proof of alcohol is fine, but it will increase your infusion time by several days.

Lemongrass: Use the white parts of the lemongrass to get the best flavor. The finer you chop the lemongrass, the more flavor you’ll get out of the infusion; in retrospect, I would have run the Everclear and lemongrass through a blender. Feel free to add other ingredients, like peppercorns or dried basil, to the infusion. You’ll end up with a more complex, herbal limoncello.

We aren’t linking to Amazon anymore, because fuck Bezos with a rusty bar spoon. Go read Lemon: A Global History by Toby Sonneman instead. The modern lemon was carefully bred and cultivated to become the tart, plump treat we know today. We’ve genetically modified our food for generations; recent science just speeds up the process. The story of how we got there is fascinating.

You can find me on Bluesky at @samuraigrog!

OPEN THREAD! DRINK!