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I love limoncello, and usually make some once or twice a year, to keep in the freezer.

Today I’ve made a recipe from this month’s Waitrose magazine, for orange and bay liqueur. Wow. I don’t know what it will eventually taste like, but it smells fantastic! Fingers crossed for Christmas.
(I’m just a bit upset I only made half quantities .)

That sounds interesting, I have bay leaves growing and vodka sitting doing nothing So could get going with a bag of oranges

The recipe is online

Do let us know when you taste the final result, sounds good but am interested to know how much the bay comes through, it sounds a lot but might be lovely.

Yes, I was a bit unsure about the bay. I only made half quantities to test it, and used two very small, dried bay leaves.

I know it’s not correct, but after years of trials with limoncello, I also added the juice of 1/2-1 orange. It still smells lovely today.....but very orangery. I can’t wait.

It was very difficult to zest the oranges. My hands were hurting after the first one, so I had to wait before I did the rest. I think once the skin is ‘wet’, it’s harder to zest. I went back to to the first ones at the end, after they’d dried out a bit. Much easier.
Interestingly, I make limoncello with grated zest. Much easier. Unless it was the type of orange.

When I have made limoncello I have used a zester, one of these

The flavour and colour extract more quickly and completely from the little curls of zest than from bigger strips but they are still easy to strain out. In fact you could probably get away with 5 or 6 oranges instead of 7

We visited a limoncello maker in Sorrento, they soak fairly large strips of zest in alcohol much stronger than vodka - I think over 70% and the extraction is quick and complete, the zest is white after 2 weeks. They then dilute the flavoured alcohol with sugar syrup.

Orange and bay sounds lovely, will be interesting to know what it tastes like

I’m not convinced. It tastes ok, but the flavours don’t seem to have blended very well. I don’t think I should have added the extra orange juice. You can’t taste the bay (I used dried), and it’s cloudy despite being strained through muslin.

(but it won’t go to waste )