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My house in Arizona has a lemon tree and an orange tree. When I first moved here two and a half years ago, I had a pretty decent lemon crop (about 35 lemons or so) that I needed to find intersting uses for. One of the ideas I came up with was to make limoncello, an Italian liquor.

After doing some research, I came across a recipe in the San Francisco Chronicle's Food Section. The recipe went something like this:

• 15 thick-skinned lemons
• 2 bottles (750 ml) 100-proof vodka
• 4 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 5 cups water (I used spring)

You peeled the lemons, making sure not to take the pith with you, and put the peels in a glass jar along with 1 bottle of the vodka. After 40 days, you made a simple syrup from the sugar and water, added it to the lemon peel/vodka mixture, and then added the second bottle of vodka. The jar then went back in the cabinet for another 40 days after which you strained the liquid and bottled it.

That limoncello was good, but a bit too sweet and syrupy for my taste, especially after I had sampled several other commercial limoncellos. I gave several bottles as gifts, and the recipients all seemed to agree that it was pretty good if not a little too sweet.

This year, I set out to make some more limoncello, but to make it a little less syrupy. Here's the modified recipe I'm using:

• 15 thick-skinned lemons
• 2 bottles (750 ml) 100-proof vodka
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 3 cups water (spring)

I started with the same basic process of peeling the lemons and steeping them in a single bottle of vodka for about a month (until the peels had lost most of their color, and the liquid had taken on a pretty yellow color. Traditional limoncello calls for Amalfi lemons, but I'm more than happy to use the run of the mill variety on my lemon tree. They are rather large, and seem to have a decent concentration of oil on the skin.

After the first month steep, I strained the vodka/peel mixture and reserved the peels for (potentially) another use. I then made a simple syrup using 2 cups sugar and 2 cups water, boiled on the stove for about 5 minutes than allowed to cool. I added the syrup, additional cup of water, and second bottle of vodka to the strained limoncello base and placed it back in the glass jug. I'm letting everything sit for a few days now before I bottle the limoncello and stick it in my freezer as I prefer to drink it ice cold. Last time around, I used resealable french lemonade bottles, which looked great. I added a long strip of peel to each bottle for effect.

I figure that if it comes out to be too sweet/syrupy this time around, I can continue to dilute it with additional water to taste. We'll see how it goes.