So I haven’t posted for a while huh, I’m sure nobody was left, rocking backwards and forwards while sucking their thumbs waiting for me but the absence should at least be acknowledged. So fear not gentle readers I’ve returned, it was Christmas that stole me from you, Christmas and all the million other things that suddenly needed my attention, rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated.
I thought I’d show you a little bit of what I’ve been doing during the lull in posts. Christmas kinda snuck up on me this year a little, suddenly I had a bunch of stuff to get and very little time to get it in. I really like getting people presents though and sometimes I find making things when you just cant think of what to buy someone can turn around a gift that might otherwise have been just another DVD.
One of my friends and I decided that we would try and make each other things so that we didn’t go nuts with the getting expensive presents and I spent ages thinking of what I could make.
The last few years I’ve started turning to cooking more to make people presents because I figure if its something I like doing that people like me doing for them then why not and cooking as a gift lets you be a little more extravagant and do things you might not ordinarily do if you were just making someone dinner.
This particular friend is a bit of a booze queen, I’m not casting aspersions or inferring that she should join any anonymous organizations, it’s not a problem she just likes her drink, so naturally when I’m thinking of cooking for her I’m thinking of how we can involve booze somewhere in the mix.
There are a couple of homemade booze experiences in my life the first of which was a brief encounter with a friend of mines beer making operation when I was about 16.
I’m not a fan of beer but that stuff was bloody good it was made from rainwater from the Glass House Mountains Queensland
The second was at uni when we were all so broke that we couldn’t afford decent booze and so were forced to make our own from the range of essences they used to sell at liquor land outlets before they banned them. I think someone died from drinking the essence straight or something. They weren’t too bad considering, they had a bunch of different ones that you could make like cointreau, vodka, gin, brandy, midori, things like that and they were cheap you could buy one for like 6 bucks and make litres of whatever the essence was for. Basically they came in these 300 or 400ml bottles and you had to make up a sugar syrup and then add the essence to the syrup to dilute it and add enough sugar to make it palatable and then wait for it all to cool down and bam you got booze.
We would take them to parties in recycled bottles and make cocktails that made you feel like you were drinking cleaning fluid.
Neither of those things seemed like they were exactly right for a Christmas gift though, I didn’t have time to brew my own beer and there’s something decidedly cheap about making your own booze from an essence so I was at a loss until I saw something on cable about people making their own Limoncello. Limoncello in case you hadn’t come across it is an Italian Lemon Liqueur that you can usually find now in most bottle shops but can be easily made at home. It’s basically a concoction of lemon rinds sugar and alcohol.
You can use any alcohol, I used vodka in mine, and apparently the higher the proof the more lemony the flavour because the oils in the lemon rinds become soluble in the purer alcohol. I haven’t tested that theory yet but I’ll let you know when I do.
Realistically you could probably use this method to infuse any flavour into your chosen alcohol, the lemon though is really nice in summer particularly if you store the bottle in the freezer so its icy icy cold. I think she liked the present anyway. She ended up piking on the making me something idea and got me some cute little flan tins and a couple of little heart shaped ones and a little ladle that will come in very handy for skimming sauces and stocks so I was happy too.
Limoncello
If you want to make this for a gift for someone make it about a month or two before you want to give it to them then you can strain out the lemon rind and make it all pretty. Myself I like the lemon rind being in there so I made it about 2 weeks before to let the flavours develop a bit before I gave it to my friend for Christmas.
6 lemons ( I prefer to use organic ones if I can get them but that’s up to you)
1 bottle of vodka (700-750mls or 3 cups of your chosen booze)
1 cup of caster sugar
I ¾ cups of water
Put your lemons in a bowl and cover with boiling water, let them stand for about an hour then drain them and dry them and make your zest. You can either grate the zest or use a zester to get long strips like I did. In the time that you’ve been soaking your lemons make up a sugar syrup with the water and the sugar by putting them in a saucepan and bringing it to the boil, let it boil for a few minutes and you’ll see it starts to thicken. Take it off the heat and let it cool.
Make sure you’ve thoroughly cleaned and sterilized what ever bottle you’ve chosen to keep your Limoncello in and then pour in the alcohol and lemon zest before topping up with the sugar syrup. Store it in a cool dark place and give it a bit of a shake every so often and you’ve got yourself some Limoncello.
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