There’s a lot going on in limoncello land! First, check out the redesigned website. It’s better looking and over twice as fast as the old one. Merry Christmas!

There’s still time to make limoncello as a Christmas gift if you so desire. It won’t be the same as the kind that infuses for 3 months, I know, but a reasonable batch can be made with 7 days of infusion time (maybe even less). Sign up for my email list to the right or below and get my free report on making limoncello as a gift.

I added two new commercial limoncello reviews just in time for the holidays and one of them was pretty tasty. I reviewed Ventura Limoncello and Sogno di Sorrento Limoncello.

Lastly, if you want the full scoop on all I’ve learned over the years I just finished my e-book The Complete Guide to Homemade Limoncello. It comes with a couple special bonuses, check it out.

Fellow “quester” Stephen sent me a picture of two bottles of limoncello that he made. One was made with my standard recipe, the other with Giada’s recipe. It makes a point that I totally forgot to make in my review. The lack of filtration in the Giada recipe will make for scummy-looking limoncello. You can see the film developing on the top of the Giada limoncello below (Giada’s is on the right). It looks like a piece of lemon peel in the bottle but it’s actually a ring of gunk that results from insufficient filtration.

In that respect, it’s actually a poor recipe for gift-giving. I definitely should have mentioned that. However, you could use the same recipe and filter it via my method. That would give you a gift quality limoncello that won’t embarrass you.

A new post, can you believe it?! Many apologies for my sloth, friends. I have a few reviews collected but I haven’t been posting them in a timely fashion at all. I’ve been busy working on other sites, but it’s no excuse!

My latest idea was to test a few of the recipes out on the web that are very popular and see how they compare to my own. I started with a recipe on the Food Network by Giada De Laurentiis. Check it out and you’ll see all the specs that I usually post here. Since the recipe doesn’t specify, I employed my own best practices and used organic lemons and 100-proof vodka.

I’m testing a few things here. One is just what Giada’s recipe tastes like versus my own. A second is peeling versus zesting. She recommends peeling and I usually zest. A third is the infusion time, she recommends 4 days and I usually do a minimum of 30 days.

Without further ado, here are the results. The peeling was a painful process. I’m meticulous about not getting any pith and you have to be serious samurai to peel lemons quickly without getting any pith. It took me a long time. There are people who claim peeling is the ONLY way to make limoncello because it produces a product with more flavor and clarity. I’ll concede the clarity point. Zesting produces a much cloudier limoncello. If you peel you’ll get a nice clear limoncello right away. It’s also easier to filter. However, I don’t think it positively impacts the lemon flavor you get and if you let zested limoncello rest long enough, it becomes clear eventually.

The finished limoncello had a nice medium yellow color, but the aroma was weak and it was hard to detect the lemon scent. The flavor was also pretty weak, it tasted like a lemon drop but had a character more akin to simple syrup than limoncello. It was extremely smooth with no real alcohol heat. I would describe this as limoncello for those who don’t really like alcohol. It had a very sweet, easy-to-like flavor so I understand why the recipe is popular (nothing to do with Giada I’m sure…). I prefer a stronger lemon character and a stronger liquor in general. Those are certainly preferences though.

In all, this is a good recipe for someone wanting to give limoncello as a gift. You can make it quickly vs. my recipe and it produces a clear, attractive limoncello that most people who don’t usually drink limoncello may like. It’s not a batch that I would personally be proud of but it’s definitely interesting that you can make a semi-decent limoncello in 4 days.