Lemons...again

I assembled all the ingredients to make limoncello, including Everclear which is available in a bottle from the liquor store. There is more family history to this drink than the fact that my niece, Annie,  is married to an Italian man and lives in Saluzzo near Torino. Everclear is basically ethanol...distilled grain alcohol. IT is similar to vodka but higher proof so it is recommended for making limoncello as a good deal of water is added and dilutes the vodka.

My brother has  been in the ethanol business ever since he grew watermelons for seed. The seed company would harvest the seeds and leave the watermelon pulp to rot and attract flies in his fields until he plowed it under. He went to work on the first portable still which would follow the harvesters and turn the agricultural waste into ethanol. 

In the course of the career which resulted from that first venture, Rick met Annie's future husband's family who are also in the business of making ethanol. Annie's husband, Davide spends a lot of time talking to various distillers, including some of the famous Scottish whiskey makers. I hasten to add that I don't think the likes of Glenmorangie or Talisker add ethanol to their spirits but Davide has some reason to cultivate a relationship with them.

Annie said she used Sedamyl  (the family business) ethanol for her limoncello, but it seemed impractical for me to import a liter of it, so Everclear it is, even though it has somewhat dubious connections in my mind. 

I got some corks for the bottles I have been saving on the windowsill because I liked the shapes, and OilMan tested out various citrus peelers from the kitchen drawer to determine which was most effective at getting off the peel without the pith (which will ruin the flavor). With everything assembled, I was just about to begin the process when I realized that OilMan had used up the last of the sugar for the hummingbird feeders.

Ah well...one more day probably won't be a tragedy in the life of a bottle of limoncello. It almost was, however, in the life of a house gift sent to us by our guests of a couple of weeks ago. It went astray and Teri spent the weekend tracking it down.  A very tall box eventually appeared on our porch today .
It was a tree! Little the worse for wear for having spent the weekend on our neighbors' doorstep....