Hello, everyone. My name is Ivo and welcome to Cooking with the Coias. You know, some of the best limoncello in the world comes from the Amalfi Coast. And you know what, folks? That's exactly where this recipe comes from. Last time I was there, I got myself a great recipe for making homemade limoncello. It's easier and simpler than you think. I've got my Napoli T-shirt on my Amalfi Coast lemon apron on. So let's get started right now. First thing you're going to need are organic lemons. We're going to use the skins. So you want to make sure that you have organic lemons. You're going to need anywhere from 8 to 10 large organic lemons. The first thing you want to do is wash them. I put them under a warm water and then I scrub them with a brush. I scrub them really good because the skin, folks, is what we're going to use to make our limoncello. Now, I have a potato peeler here, and what I found is the potato peeler with a pivoting blade seems to work best. And I'll tell you why. What you're going to want to do is remove the skin from the lemon, and I apply very, very little pressure. Work your potato peeler. From top to bottom and what you want. Take a look at that, folks. Okay, here's this. This is the outside. Okay. And this is the inside. And as you can see there, there's very, very little white. Yes. So you want to avoid the white as much as possible because the white pith. Here you see the white tip on that lemon is bitter. So all we want is the beautiful outside yellow skin. And like I say, with the very, very little pressure you could take. Oops. But, look, I think I lost the piece. You take a look pillar. And just very, very lightly go from top to bottom and cut yourself a strip. Again, all you're getting is basically the skin, and you want your work your way. There goes another one. You want to work your way around the entire moment and just continue to very, very gently remove that skin so you can end up with strips like that. So I'm going to just continue doing this and get all of these lemons done. That's the first step. There we go, folks. We are all done. And I'll tell you what, once you get started, it goes very, very quickly. And it's very easy to remove the skins from these lemons. Now, from these lemons, I will keep probably half of them fresh in the fridge and use them up fresh. And the other half folks, I'm going to freeze them and then take them out one at a time as I need them. Of course, you can make lemonade and do other things with them, but that's what I'm going to do. Okay, so now we've got these beautiful, beautiful strips of lemon rind, and quite simply, we're going to take them and put them into a container. You want your container to be at least three liters or three quarts size or bigger. Ideally, folks, a larger whole opening would be better than a smaller one. But this is the gallon I have. It's three liters. So all I'm going to do now is take these beautiful lemon strips of lemon rind and just put them into this gallon container. So I'm just going to place them in there and we're going to get them all into that container. And here's our last few. Now, again, this would have been a lot quicker with a wide mouth jar or container. But you know what? It's still rather rather quickly. So we have all our beautiful lemon skins in this gallon. And what we're going to do now, folks, is I have here some alcohol. If you do not have alcohol, you could use vodka or a grappa. But honestly, folks, the alcohol is the best. And that's where you're going to get your higher alcohol content from at the end of the day with this recipe. So I'm just going to with a funnel, this is 750 milliliters of alcohol. I don't know what that is and quarts and has to do a search for that. But it's 750 milliliters. And all we're going to do here, folks, is pour that in and get it all in there. Oh, okay. And there we go. Good for the last drop, folks. Okay, so that's now done. You will need a lid for your container. I should have mentioned that earlier, because you're going to want to now seal this up. And there we have it. Okay, so the next step now we have this beautiful container with our alcohol and our lemon skins. And all you have to do now is put it in a cool, dark place. For me, that's the basement. I'm going to put it in the basement in a room where there is little light or no light and let it sit there. It has to sit for two weeks. Now, during this two week period, folks, you could go down once a day. Just give it a little shake. You can go down every other day. You could go every third day at least a few times a week. You just want to give it a little shake and get that alcohol and those skins mixed together because you want that intense flavor to be released. So I'm going to go put this down into the basement. I'll give it a shake every day, every other day. And we'll come back in two weeks. Oh, and by the way, 750 milliliters, 25.3 ounces. Got to love Google. Here we are two weeks later and our Limoncello is brewing very, very nicely. In fact, let me take a piece of paper you could see. Hopefully you can see it's got a nice. Here. Let's take a look here. A nice yellow color to the liquid. Can you see that? It's turned the nice yellow color. Perfect. Okay, so now this next step, folks, is even easier than the first step that we did. So we're going to put our brew aside and in a pot. What I have here, I have one liter of water, which is equivalent to one quart, basically. So we're going to bring one liter of water to a boil. Okay. Now, I also like to use filtered water because this is going to go directly into our limoncello. We're going to be drinking it. So you want the best water you can possibly get. So one liter of water, Let's bring it to a boil. So there's the boil we've been looking for right there. Turn the heat down. I have here 700 grams of sugar. Yes, it's a lot of grams, but the lemon cello is sweet. So 700 grams is equivalent to about 28 ounces of sugar. Now, what you're going to want to do now is mix it in and let it all dissolve into this boiled water. So just stir it and continue to stir it until it finishes dissolving, which won't take long. It's almost there already. So I'm just going to stir this a bit more. And do I see any more crystals? It looks like we are all absorbed. Perfect. Okay. Heat goes off, and all we do now is a little bit of patience. Not much, but we're going to let this cool before we add it to our brew. So just let it cool. Well, we'll come back in 2 to 3 hours and we get this get nice and cool and we'll show you the next step. So with our liquid now cooled, we could take the top off and we're going to add it to our brew. So with the funnel, I'll just gingerly add it. And almost there, I think, for this last little bit. We will pour it in this way. Here we go. Beautiful. Okay. Her sugar water is now in. And as you can see, our container is starting to get full. Now we're going to go back to our alcohol. And if I didn't mention it earlier, it's 190 proof or 95% alcohol. Okay. So what we're going to do is fire up our way scale. You want 250 grams, which is the same as 250 milliliters or eight and a half ounces, roughly. So that's just the way that up. Get it up to 250. And my container going to make it. I got to 34. I'm going to stop there for that in. Oh, and I lost a bit. I knew that was going to happen. Okay, put that back on. So I need 16. And a little bit extra for what I spelt. Okay. All right. There you go. So 250 milliliters or 250 grams added in. So this is why you need a container big enough. Because as you go. Now, this is. It's not going to. This is it, folks. This is is as big as it gets. And I'm hoping you can see that beautiful yellow color now. Look at that. With that sugar water mixed in there. And the alcohol. Beautiful, beautiful yellow color. So what we have to do now, this now needs to sit again patiently. I'm going to put it in a dark room in my basement and I'm going to let it sit for it's got to sit for four weeks, minimum up to five weeks. And at that point, it'll be done. So we're going to let this. And then once, once a week or more, you want to give it a shake because it's going to continue to extract those beautiful colors and that wonderful flavor from the from the lemon skins. Over the next 4 to 5 weeks or so downstairs, it's going to go. Once a week. At a minimum. I'll give it a shake. I'll probably do it a little more, though. I'll go down there every maybe other day or so and give it a little shake and we'll come right back at you in 4 to 5 weeks. So, folks, exciting times. Here we are four weeks later. Our lemon Jell-O has been resting very nicely. And now, folks, the exciting part, it's time to decant. So I have a funnel here. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to pass it through a screen, which is coarse, and then fine. It's got two meshes on here. Oh, I tightly seal that up and then nice and slowly we're going to decant this into another container. Oh, it's got a beautiful yellow color. Look at that, folks. Oh, very nice. Very nice. Okay. I'm not seeing any sediment at all. Actually. It looks really, really clear, folks. Really, really clear. Okay. And continue to pour this out. Now, you do remember I said ideally you start this off with a container with a large mouth. This has got a small one. And that's because I got to get all those lemon scales, skins of this container. So if it had a wide mouth, the lemon skins would come out very, very easily. Okay. So I'm going to have to play around to get those lemon skins out. That'll be another job. But you know what? That's okay. That's okay. But certainly large wide mouth container would definitely be better. Okay, so now that I've done that, depending on how clear you want it. So I'm going to put that aside. Okay. Good catch. All right. So now we have this beautiful lemon show. We'll check that out, folks. It's got a nice color to it. And. Mm. What a nice aroma. Okay, so I have another gallon container here, and I've got a really fine mesh here, thanks to my good friend Sam. And I'm going to just pass that through one more time. Although honestly, folks, it looks really, really clear. Again, depending on how clear you want it, The other thing you could do once you've passed it through a screen, what works really well are coffee filters. You can pass your limoncello through a coffee filter and really get it clarified to be very, very clean. Cheesecloth works as well. But right now, I'm going to settle with this fine mist screen. Again, I'm not seeing any sediment here at all. Obviously there must be a little bit of something is catching, but this looks really, really good, folks. Okay, let's finish pouring that out. All the aromas. This is unbelievable. Okay, good. To the last drop. All right. All right. So now we've got our skins there that I'm going to have to take out. And there's probably a little more liquid in there that I can get out at some point. Speaking of good to the last drop, very, very little coming out there. It's basically done. Okay. Now, see what I do, folks. I saved my old Limoncello bar bottles, and now I can refill them. This Limoncello bottle is right from Ravello, Italy. So let's fill that up. And then you know what I have to do, folks? Ideally, you fill it, and then you put it in the freezer, of course, and get it nice and cold, and then you serve it chilled. But for today's taste test, folks, I can't wait for it to be chilled. We're going to try it right now, even though it's not not chilled. We're going to do the taste test right there. All right. So it's a great idea to save those old Limoncello bottles just for this reason right here. All righty. Look at this, folks. Look at this. Hey, isn't that nice? Beautiful. Now, it's not from Ravello, but let's get a shot glass and let's do the taste test right now. I am looking forward to this, folks. I happen to have a nice, chilled lemon Jell-O shot glass in my freezer. Let's give a little pour. Who? Folks. Salud. Hmm. All I could say is, wow, that is dynamite. Mm hmm. Beautiful flavor, folks. Beautiful flavor. You feel a little bit of strength from the alcohol? That nice lemony taste. Very, very refreshing. And once this is chilled, folks, it is going to be even that much better. I'll tell you what. Look at that homemade lemon cello right there, folks. Bottled. Nice color to it. And the taste. Amazing. Made right at home. So if you can't make your way to Italy or you can't get ahold of some good Italian limoncello, or you just want to experiment and have a little hobby at home, making limoncello is very, very easy. You just need a little bit of patience and a little bit of time to get it to secure. But once it's made in the freezer, I've got lots here that will last me a while. And when I'm ready, I'll just make another batch. Why not do it? It's a great hobby. If you get a chance, give Limoncello a try. Tastes good. And you know what? I think a little bit is good for you. Just a bit. Thanks for tuning in. And as always, until next time, bone a potato and salute. It's a winner, folks. It's a winner. Wow. Let's put this in the freezer right now.
