mrRed

After a long hard day of eating a late breakfast, snacking on cheese and than napping (its a hard life), just made the future wife and I a nice little cocktail before dinner. 1-1/2 oz. Absinthe Freshly squeezed juice of 1 orange Stir the above in ice and pour into a rocks glass. Top with club soda and garnish with an orange wedge.

I finished this batch a while ago and still have a small bit leftover and there are a couple things to go into. First off, one batch was made using standard Absolut, and the other with the 100 proof Smirinoff. The Absolut version was a mess and I've had no more than a few sips. The rest is still sitting in my home, although I should really just dump the batch. I think its due to a few differences in the process. The Smirinoff version is delicious, and I was very happy with how it turned out. I still have a small bit left, and need to start another batch soon. The differences are as follows: The Smirinoff version used the same lemons as the absolut, but they were first submerged in boiling water for 10 seconds, removed, and scrubbed with a rough cloth to remove the wax. With the Absolut version, I just scrubbed them under warm running water. Second, and I think this is the most important, is that I barely took the yellow off of the lemons with the micro-plane for the smirinoff version, while I was a little heavy handed with the grater on the absolut. This, IMO, made all the difference in the world. The absolut is quite bitter and side by side is really not good compared to the smirinoff version. After approximately 40 days of sitting, I used an identical amount of sugar for each to give the same sweetness, but recalculated the amount of total simple syrup I needed to use in order to get my ~65 proof. This thread was extremely helpful though, thanks to all. The only real problem I have is that I can't find the formula I used for the amount of sugar to water, so I'm gonna have to try again next batch and do a better job of not throwing it away.

Just wanted to thank you for a great experience. I was in Chicago for business and decided to head to TVH for a round of cocktails, and I was duly impressed. Even though I've dabbled in some home made liquors myself and enjoy a well made cocktail, I was blown away. Really great job and congrats on nearly having a packed house on a Sunday night.

Thanks Tim, I understand the general method and plan on experimenting with various saturations of vodka to syrup before I finish the large batch, and was more concerned with ending with a product that is too lemony. Some recipes seem to add more vodka after adding a simple syrup of 1:1 sugar/water while other just add a more concentrated 2:1 sugar/water syrup and forgo adding more vodka. I suppose that the reason for my confusiong is that a large amount of the recipes I've seen add extra plain vodka after the 1:1 syrup seemingly to dilute the flavor of the lemon down to a more palatable level, rather than just ending with the proper alcohol level which will prevent against Ice crystals forming during chilling. I guess I'll really just play around and see what the result is of various saturations, keeping in mind that the minimum alcohol content I should approach is 60 proof, and besides that I should just experiment with different ingredient blends to get to, at very least, 60 proof level.

Welcome to eGullet and the wonderful world of limoncello, mrRed! You're not diluting the solution with the extra vodka. You're bringing it back up to proof or strength to taste after diluting it with simple syrup. Limoncello isn't just lemon flavored vodka. It's a liqueur that incorporates a significant amount of sugar (in the form of simple syrup) for sweetness and viscosity. ← So Since I have two 750ml bottles of limoncello brewing, I should just be able to combine the both, add the syrup and have a particularly strong batch? If need be, I could than ease the flavor back with more vodka / syrup solution to taste to bring it back down should I want it that way, or if the stronger flavor is something I like, than just not worry about adding further non-lemon-infused vodka/syrup solution.

So (for my first post, nonetheless) I've had two bottles of vodka sitting filled with microplaned lemon peels for the past 20+ days and I'm going to be starting the next steps fairly soon. I do have a question though. Further diluting the solution with an extra 750ml of vodka? At the point where I'm at now, having the peels saturate into the liquid, it seems like there will be quite the concentrated lemon flavor, and diluting it will just bring that down. Is the dilution of extra vodka really neccessary, and would the limoncello just be too strong without diluting?