{"id":742,"date":"2017-03-13T17:02:40","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T23:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?post_type=recipe&p=742"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:59:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:59:21","slug":"limoncello-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2017\/03\/13\/limoncello-recipe\/","title":{"rendered":"Limoncello (Italian Lemon Liqueur)"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 13, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n

I love mead, more so dry mead than\u00a0sweet mead.\u00a0 I first tasted mead at the age of 19 when my college roommate, Ray Hugh, and I visited his mother outside of London one summer.\u00a0 For some reason, I never had it again but the experience stuck with me. \u00a0(I know you\u2019re wondering how this is going to get around to Limoncello but read on!)<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the late 1990\u2019s when my husband began making wine at home.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t have a proper wine cellar at the time, though we ultimately built a temperature controlled wine cellar in the basement of the coach house at our estate on Oakdale Avenue in Chicago\u2026right below the gear works that were once used to rotate the horse-drawn carriages on the floor above.<\/p>\n

This is what the coach house looked like when we owned the property on Oakdale Avenue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We had a whole row of five gallon carboys of grape juice bubbling away through air locks in our family room.\u00a0 The wooden floors became stained purple.\u00a0 Luckily we were planning on remodeling the room and tearing up the floor so it didn\u2019t matter much.<\/p>\n

The wine was surprisingly good.\u00a0 We had both red and white.\u00a0 We made labels for our \u201cRohkam House\u201d wines that portrayed a picture of the house as it looked in the late 1880\u2019s.\u00a0 You can find that picture in a previous post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After a few successes with wine, I asked Frank to make mead.\u00a0 He settled on a recipe he fancied, though it was not entirely a traditional northern European mead.\u00a0 It contained honey, of course, but the recipe specifically called for orange blossom honey which obviously has no connection to northern Europe.\u00a0 The recipe also required some freshly squeezed orange juice instead of just water.\u00a0 I was a bit skeptical about the non-traditional ingredients but\u2026hey\u2026I was finally getting my mead after all these years.<\/p>\n

I found a beekeeper in Florida who would sell me five pounds of orange blossom honey from his own bees.\u00a0 I ordered five pounds of honey.\u00a0 I got fifty pounds sent overnight delivery!<\/p>\n

It turns out that Muriel, the beekeeper, got two orders at the same time.\u00a0 My order was for five pounds sent by UPS ground.\u00a0 Someone else ordered 50 pounds sent express.\u00a0 Muriel got the orders confused and we suddenly were in the business of making ten times as much mead as we had planned.<\/p>\n

That also meant we needed ten time the number of oranges we had planned on to get enough juice.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t bear to let those orange peels go to waste so I took out the recipe for limoncello that I got from relatives in Tuscany on our visit a couple of years earlier and decided to make it with orange zest instead of lemon zest.<\/p>\n

I dubbed it arancello, using the Italian word for orange in the same way the Italian word for lemon is used to make the word limoncello.<\/p>\n

I ultimately served it to friends and family visiting from Europe.\u00a0 I explained what I had done to make it.\u00a0 Not one of them had ever heard of anything like it but it was a hit.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a decade or two and arancello started to be imported from Italy (often called orancello or orangecello).\u00a0 While I can\u2019t claim to have invented arancello, I am pretty sure it was not a common product when I got the idea to repurpose the family recipe for limoncello.<\/p>\n

Oh, and that mead\u2026it was pretty darn good.\u00a0 We served it for many dinner parties in place of white wine.\u00a0 Everyone thought it was wine.\u00a0 It had that haunting floral quality so like a good Viognier.\u00a0 Now that we have orange trees outside our door in Palm Springs\u00a0maybe we can dig up that mead recipe again and make arancello as a buyproduct!

<\/div>
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n
\n \n <\/div>\n

Limoncello (Italian Lemon Liqueur)<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n \n
<\/div>\n
While you will find recipes for Limoncello made with vodka, using higher proof alcohol yields a more consistent extraction of the flavor compounds. The higher the proof, the better. However, 190 proof alcohol is not available everywhere so I\u2019ve adjusted this recipe to use 151 proof alcohol. The original recipe, which came from family in Tuscany, called for less than half the amount of lemon zest I've used here. Over successive versions for over the last 2 decades, I find I like these proportions best. Lemoncello does not keep indefinitely. It is best to use this within a year. Use the freshest lemons you can find for the most flavorful limoncello.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n Print Recipe<\/a>\n Pin Recipe<\/a>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
Prep Time <\/span>1 hour<\/span><\/span> hr<\/span> 15 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Total Time <\/span>1 hour<\/span><\/span> hr<\/span> 26 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Servings: <\/span>2<\/span> liters<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/g>\n\n\n\n<\/clipPath>\n<\/defs>\n<\/svg>\n<\/span> Ingredients<\/a>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/g>\n\n\n\n<\/clipPath>\n<\/defs>\n<\/svg>\n<\/span> Method<\/a>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span> Notes<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n

Ingredients
<\/div>