It’s Meyer lemon season and every blog is overflowing with recipes. I’m somewhat jealous of those bloggers who have unlimited quantities of Meyer lemons to hand. I can’t seem to find them in quantity anywhere. The best I can find is a 1lb (wildly overpriced) bag at Whole Foods. Those of you who have 20lb boxes of them available, let me know where I can get them!

One of the things I’ve been wanting to try is Meyer lemon limoncello – which I first read about a couple of years ago on Heather’s Voodoo & Sauce blog. I’ve always made limoncello the traditional way, with zested lemon rinds, but her version, using the whole of the sweeter Meyer lemon really appealed to me. Mainly because zesting 4 dozen lemons is kind of a pain in the ass.

So I went ahead and splurged on a couple of those 1 lb bags at Whole Foods, just so I could make this recipe.

These were marked organic and supposedly not waxed or polished, but I still gave them a soak in a weak vinegar water solution and a good scrub with a brush. Then I trimmed off the ends of each lemon, cut them into quarters, and dropped them into a half-gallon mason jar.

1 lb of lemons filled a little over half the jar. Then I added the better part of a 750 ml bottle of 100 proof vodka. I know that a lot of the recipes you find call for Everclear or grain alcohol, but I find it too harsh and bitter. 100 proof vodka does just as well with less of a bite.

I put a lid on the jar and set it in the back of my pantry. Heather said she left hers for a month. I’m going to go for 8 weeks and then we’ll see where that gets us. So tune in April 20th for Part 2 of the Meyer limoncello saga!