Rind Altering: utilizing all the parts of the fruit
We squeeze a lot of lemons at the distillery for the fresh juice used in the legendary cocktails at Ciderhouse. After 8 years of composting the remaining rinds we decided we should put all the future zest to a better use. I’ve been wanting to make a limoncello for a long time, just never wanted to deal with all the zesting prior to juicing. So, I finally broke down and purchased a Starfrit Rotato. This electric peeler has made easier work of the daunting task of zesting 150 lemons at a time.
Once zested, we steep this lemon zest in our vidal grape based spirit for a couple weeks. This extracts the lemon oil and lots of character from the fruit. We then cut this spirit to 40% with a sugar water solution to sweeten up the tart lemon liqueur. This small batch size generally produces around 3 cases of finished product. We like to keep the sweetness lower than other limoncellos on the market, you can always add more sugar if you feel the need.
This final blend marries the perceived sweetness of the vidal grape spirit with the sharp tartness of the lemon zest with just enough sugar to produce a perfect sipper or an awesome cocktail spirit! My favorite is a Limoncello and Tonic!
Make sure to choose a high quality tonic like Rudy’s Classic Tonic Syrup to complement this premium Limoncello.
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