Nettle Liqueur

Makers of homemade Italian liqueurs, rejoice! In 2014 the Aboca Museum in Tuscany released an English version of Renato Vicario’s 2011 treatise on Italian liqueurs. This new edition, entitled Italian Liqueurs: History and Art of a Creation, presents over 140 Italian liqueur recipes. This in and of itself warrants enthusiastic applause. But Vicario’s work also includes an excellent history of liqueurs; a section on methods and techniques; a concise botanical dictionary; a pharmaceutical glossary; and a comprehensive resource section to help the reader find herbs and spices. Like Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta, Vicario’s Italian Liqueurs represents an ark: his work preserves regional recipes for aperitifs, digestifs and bitters (amari) that, with time, risked disappearing.

Vicario organizes his collection of Italian liqueur recipes into five sections: Fruit; Berry; Citrus; Herbal; and Other. In each of these sections I found both the familiar and the very unfamiliar. Under his Fruit chapter, Vicario includes recipes for an apple, a cherry and a wild plum liqueur, but also instructions on how to make an apple seed and a peach stone liqueur. In his Citrus section, Vicario includes a recipe for limoncello (actually three different versions), Orange Elixir (my bottle will be ready in time for Christmas!), and Mother-in Law Milk (which is very similar to Liquore latte di vecchia (here)). In his catch-all Other section, Vicario shares recipes for nut, egg and spice liqueurs, and a recipe for Tomato Elixir made with green tomatoes and tomato leaves.

Italian Liqueurs’ largest—and to my mind, the most interesting—chapter covers 63 different herbal liqueurs. Vicario includes recipes for a diverse range of herbal aperitifs, digestifs and bitters such as: Absinthe Liqueur; Alpine Bitter; Artichoke Digestif; Cardoon Bitter; Carnation Liqueur; Eternal Youth Bitter; Juniper Essence; Melissa Water; Mugo Pine Elixir; Linden Liqueur; Piemontese Bitter; Rhubarb Tonic; Sunflower Liqueur; and Trappist Bitter. And these drinks are just the tip of the herbal liqueur iceberg.

Throughout Italian Liqueurs Vicario stresses the importance of carefully sourcing a liqueur’s ingredients. He writes: “…the most important part of liqueur preparation is the choice of the ingredients. You MUST use the freshest, best ripened, most organic and delectable herbs, plants and fruits you want to add to your liqueurs....Use everything local and in season: this is possibly the most important consideration in the selection of your ingredients and it cannot be stressed enough. Please do not make a strawberry liqueur in January, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere.”

As I reside in the Northern Hemisphere and with spring currently awakening, I decided to try Italian Liqueurs’ recipe for Nettle Liqueur. Stinging nettles abound in my neighborhood; a short walk down my street and into the woods yielded bags of young nettle buds.  For this recipe, however, you only need a couple of handfuls (handled with gloves, of course). Here is Vicario’s recipe for Nettle Liqueur.

1 liter of 190 proof alcohol

1 liter of de-mineralized water

600 grams of sugar

40 nettle fresh buds (top of the new growth) (Urtica dioica)

5 peppermint leaves (Mentha piperita)

Put the fresh leaves and buds in a jar with the alcohol for 8 days. Then make a syrup by boiling the water and the sugar until the sugar has dissolved, and let cool. Add the syrup to the alcohol mixture in the jar and let it steep for 1 day. Filter the mixture and bottle. Leave in a cool, dry place at least 1 week before consuming.

So how does a nettle liqueur taste? To me: herbaceous, but not too green, and sweet with a hint of mint. If you make this drink, watch the color of the liqueur change during its preparation from a beautiful deep emerald green to a bright olive.

Like the majority of recipes in Italian Liqueurs, making Nettle Liqueur is a snap. In the first half of his book, Vicario describes how to correctly prepare liqueurs and why he recommends certain ingredients like 190 proof alcohol and de-mineralized water. He also explains how and why you filter liqueurs.

I recommend Italian Liqueurs to anyone interested in making homemade liqueurs. (I ordered my copy from Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York.) Vicario’s knowledge and enthusiasm for these regional drinks shines throughout his book. He begins his work recounting his childhood memories of his Emilian great-grandmother rolling pasta, canning tomatoes sauce, and making the family’s liqueurs that, he writes, were absolutely necessary on a well-stocked table. “Who had ever heard of not serving a Nocino, or at least a Ratafià at the end of a meal?” Thankfully, Vicario has authored a book that preserves these regional Italian recipes thus permitting us to make and offer these gracious beverages to our friends and family.

Liquore latte di vecchia

This is the last post in a short series on homemade Italian liqueurs. Using Maria Pignatelli Ferrante’s Puglia - A Culinary Memoir [2008] as a springboard, we began with a recipe for Rosolio di limone, a bright-tasting, aromatic lemon liqueur. We next explored Nocino, a dark, complex liqueur made with green walnuts picked on 24 June, the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist. The last liqueur in this series is Liquore latte di vecchia or Old Lady’s Milk Liqueur. This curious yet worthwhile cordial is made with fresh milk, citrus, sugar and grain alcohol.

In the United States Liquore latte di vecchia is as obscure as lemon liqueurs are popular. I found two recipes in regional cookbooks from Italy (both recently published in the US by Oronzo Editions): Ferrante’s Puglia and Giuseppe Coria’s Sicily – Culinary Crossroads [2008] translated by Gaetano Cipolla. The great Pellegrino Artusi (Mr. Wilde’s neighbor on this site’s banner) has a recipe in The Science of Cookery and the Art of Eating Well [1891] that, in all but its name, is nearly the same as Liquore latte di vecchia. Artusi’s Rosolio Tedesco (or German Rosolio) contains a “garden lemon,” vanilla, grain alcohol, sugar and milk.

Although Ferrante’s, Coria’s and Artusi’s recipes are similar, they are not identical (not unusual for regional recipes). Ferrante’s and Artusi’s recipes call simply for milk, while Coria’s recipe calls for “goat or other milk, freshly milked”. Ferrante calls for half a lemon, diced, while Coria calls for the “zest of 1 orange or lemon, or vanilla.” Artusi’s recipe calls for both citrus and vanilla.

Artusi writes: “Don’t be taken aback by the strange composition of this rosolio, which is easy to make, delicately flavored, and as clear as water.” Yes, making Liquore latte di vecchia is easy. The only difficulty that you might encounter depends upon how fresh you want your milk. If store-bought milk is fresh enough, then making Liquore latte di vecchia is a breeze. However, if you want to use freshly milked cow or goat milk, then making Liquore latte di vecchia might prove a bit more challenging. Through a helpful lead from my editor, I located an organic dairy in California called Organic Pastures that sells one-day-old raw milk at a local farmer’s market.

Here is Ferrante’s recipe for Liquore latte di vecchia:

½ lemon, diced

5 cups sugar

1 quart milk

1 quart alcohol [pure, distilled]

Drop the lemon pieces into a wide-necked bottle. Add the sugar, the milk, and the alcohol. Seal hermetically and set aside to rest for 15 days, shaking the contents of the bottle every morning and evening. Filter the liqueur, transfer to clean, dry bottles. Hermetically seal the bottles.

A few notes. After adding all of the ingredients expect two things to happen: the lemon will begin to curdle the milk and the ingredients will separate. Be brave. Shaking the concoction over the 15-day infusion period helps dissolve the sugar and integrate the liquids, but do not be surprised if the liquids occasionally separate. Just keep shaking the bottle twice a day and all will be well.

After the 15-day infusion period I filtered the liqueur first through cheesecloth and then through a paper coffee filter. This produced a somewhat clear, slightly milky liquid. A second pass through a paper filter produced a relatively clear liquid, albeit with a slight yellow hue (presumably due to the lemon zest). Certainly compared to milk, this liqueur is, as Artusi puts it, “clear as water.”

Liquore latte di vecchia tastes like all of its ingredients; it is sweet and slightly lemony with a round, creamy flavor. But make no mistake: it packs a wallop (as would any drink using 151 proof alcohol).

As with Nocino, Liquore latte di vecchia rarely makes an appearance at local liquor stores here in the States. But its rarity alone is not a reason to make it. With its unique ingredients and delicate flavor, Liquore latte di vecchia deserves a broader audience. Enjoy it with a fellow Bunburyist of your choice.

Nocino

This is the second post in a series on homemade Italian liqueurs. Using Maria Pignatelli Ferrante’s Puglia – A Culinary Memoir [2008] as a guide, we began our series by making Rosolio di limone. Next up is Nocino, an ebon liqueur made with immature green walnuts traditionally picked on or around 24 June, the feast day celebrating the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.

A short side-note in Giuliano Bugialli’s Foods of Naples and Campania [2003] sparked my interest in Nocino. Bugialli writes: “Campania produces a walnut liqueur called Nocino that is made in Emilia-Romagna as well. Following the old custom, fresh walnuts that have not yet hardened are marinated—still in the shell—in pure grain alcohol, along with nutmeg, cinnamon and other spices.”

Nocino has a wonderful mythos. Traditionally the liqueur’s green walnuts are gathered—some communities employ tree-scaling, barefooted virgins—on the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist when, most probably, a green walnut’s essential oils are near its zenith. Further, some only use an odd number of walnuts to make Nocino. (There is no consensus on the exact number; I have recipes that call for 25, 29, 33 and 35 walnuts. [I disregard any recipe that calls for an even number of walnuts].)

Ferrante’s Nocino recipe is typical of the dozen or so recipes I have collected over the years. Each of these recipes is slightly different but all are generally a variation on a theme of green walnuts, alcohol and sugar.

• 25 green, not yet ripe, walnuts, picked between June 20 and June 25, quartered (not shelled)
• 1 quart alcohol [pure, distilled]
• 5 cloves
• ½ cinnamon stick
• Peel of 1 lemon
• 2 ½ cups sugar
• ¾ cup water

(Wear gloves, as these young walnuts are coated with a strong natural dye.) Wash the walnuts and dry them. Put the walnut pieces in a jar with the alcohol, cloves, cinnamon stick, and lemon peel. Seal hermetically and allow to steep for 40 days, shaking up the contents occasionally.

After 40 days, make a syrup in a pot with the sugar and water and boil for a few minutes. Filter the alcohol, discarding the walnuts…and other items, and combine with the cooled syrup. Filter again and transfer to bottles. Seal hermetically. Wait at least 3 months before serving.

Green Walnuts

Perhaps the most difficult part of making Nocino is finding a source for its main ingredient: immature, green walnuts. Walnut trees abound in my corner of the San Francisco Bay Area; I forage my crop from unsprayed trees of neighbors and friends. You can also use the Internet to find farmers that sell green walnuts by mail order.

If local walnuts are available, most recipes advise gathering the green walnuts on 24 June, the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist (and near the date of the Summer Solstice). Ferrante calls for nuts gathered between the 20^th and 25^th of June. The Ordine del Nocino Modenese, an association in Modena, Italy that promotes local Nocino, recommends a 24 June harvest date, but suggests it is permissible to gather nuts between the 6^th and 24^th of June. This range speaks to the relationship between Christian and pagan celebrations (in this case the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and Midsummer) and traditional agricultural cycles and foraging seasons. Most likely an immature walnut’s fruit is “ready” on or around the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist, which falls near the Summer Solstice.

Ferrante warns that young walnuts “are coated with a strong natural dye.” Yes, cut green walnuts can stain your hands and clothes an inky black. I do not recommend quartering the walnuts on any valued surface; I use an old wooden cutting board and exercise care when handling the cut walnuts.

Alcohol

Ferrante recommends using “pure, distilled” alcohol. As discussed in my previous Rosolio di limone post, Ferrante calls for a high alcohol content grain spirit such as Everclear. The 151 proof version of Everclear is an excellent solvent for extracting flavors, but it is not readily available (or legal) in many parts of the United States. Alternatively, you can use a high alcohol content vodka. When making a liqueur, the higher the alcohol content of your solvent, the better the extraction of essential oils.

Infusion

Nocino is typically flavored with cloves, cinnamon and citrus peel (usually lemon or orange). Some Nocino recipes call for a vanilla bean. (I leave out the citrus peel and put in a snip of a vanilla bean.) Occasionally you find modern recipes that add ingredients like roasted coffee beans and juniper berries. If you are a traditionalist, then I direct you once again to the Ordine del Nocino Modenese. With its commitment to preserving and promoting Modenese Nocino, the Order believes “[c]loves and cinnamon are the only suggested flavours to be added, though their use is optional. If they are added, they should be used sparingly so as not to detract from the harmonious walnut taste of the liqueur.”

If you follow Ferrante’s Nocino recipe, your Nocino will be ready to enjoy around mid-December. The Ordine del Nocino Modenese advises infusing the walnuts for at least 60 days, but also suggests filtering Nocino in December. This is also my practice, but expect to find a range of infusion periods. An excellent Sicilian cookbook I recently purchased by Anna Tasca Lanza entited The Heart of Sicily [1993] has a note about infusing Nocino for 40 days in a jar left in the sun. Lanza continues: “Then the brew is filtered and put away until I Morti (All Soul’s Day, November 2), when we drink it to honor the dead.”  A few recipes recommend aging the decanted Nocino for a year before serving. I don’t. After filtering, I decant the dark liquid into a handsome bottle that I keep in my freezer.

I serve Nocino as an after dinner digestif. I also use Nocino as an ingredient in a favorite recipe: Cantucci di Noci e Cannella (Walnut and Cinnamon Cookies) from Biscotti – Recipes from the Kitchen of the American Academy in Rome: Rome Sustainable Food Project [2011] by Mona Talbott and Mirella Misenti.

Rosolio di limone

This is the first post in a series on homemade Italian liqueurs. We begin with a recipe for Rosolio di limone, a lemon liqueur featured in Maria Pignatelli Ferrante’s Puglia - A Culinary Memoir [2008]. This aromatic rosolio has a sunny, round flavor that is slightly sweet and refreshingly bright. You can follow the steps used to make this rosolio to create a broad range of homemade liqueurs.

Rosolio di limone is the first of sixteen liqueur (or cordial) recipes in Ferrante’s book. Unlike many infused liqueurs that are made with a myriad of ingredients, such as fruits, flowers, leaves, seeds, roots, barks and (historically) cochineal insects, Rosolio di limone contains only four ingredients: lemon zest, alcohol, sugar and water. Making Rosolio di limone is as simple as its ingredients: soak zest in alcohol, add syrup, filter and cure. From these simple ingredients and steps, countless variations exist: the number, variety and ripeness of lemons; the type and strength of alcohol; the duration of infusion; and the kind of syrup.

Which variation will appeal to you is a matter of personal preference—this is an art (of sorts) and not an exact science. However, Ferrante’s recipe for Rosolio di limone offers insights that can help improve the quality of any homemade liqueur. Here is her recipe:

• Zest of 6 large freshly picked lemons
• 1 quart alcohol [pure, distilled]
• 5 cups sugar
• 4 ½ cups water

In a tightly sealed bottle, soak the zest in alcohol for 48 hours. Occasionally shake up the contents of the bottle. In a heavy-bottomed pot, combine the sugar and water. Boil for about 2 minutes then remove from heat. Allow the syrup to cool and then add the lemon-steeped alcohol. Stir to combine, then filter the liquid and pour back into a clean, dry bottle. Hermetically seal the liquid in the bottle and set aside for at least 1 week before serving.

Lemons

Ferrante’s recipe calls for “freshly picked” lemons. Many of the lemon varieties in Southern Italy are not readily available in the United States where Eureka and Lisbon lemons are the prevalent commercial crop. My experience is that a freshly tree-picked lemon of any variety produces a superior tasting liqueur than a supermarket lemon. Yes, different lemon varieties have different flavors and aromas, but the sooner you can get citrus zest from tree into alcohol, the better. A lemon’s essential oil is volatile and will quickly vaporize. Some Italian recipes suggest that slightly green (i.e., almost ripe) lemons have more oil and produce the best results.

Another way to improve your rosolio is to carefully prepare the lemon’s zest before infusing it in alcohol. When peeling the lemons remove only the zest without any pith. If your zest has any pith, carefully carve it away. A lemon’s white pith is unpleasantly bitter.

Alcohol

The type and proof of alcohol can also improve your rosolio. Ferrante’s recipe calls for “pure” alcohol. I read this to mean a high alcohol, neutral grain spirit. Because neutral grain spirits (e.g., Everclear) are often extremely high in alcohol, these flammable liquids are not readily available in the United States in their 190- or 151-proof versions. So then why use such a neutral grain spirit? Its danger is also its virtue: a high concentration of alcohol acts as an efficient solvent that extracts and carries certain flavors and aromas. If you do not have access to (or simply feel uncomfortable using) a neutral grain spirit, consider using 120-, 100- or 80-proof vodka.

Infusion

In Ferrante’s recipe the lemons soak in alcohol for 48 hours. This is a fairly brief time (perhaps because the recipe calls for “pure” alcohol) compared to many other rosolio recipes. If you like, you can soak the zest for an extra day or two. Four to five days is a common infusion period when using a neutral grain spirit.

Once you make and cure your rosolio, store it in your freezer. (Its alcohol content prevents it from freezing.) Bright, aromatic and cold, Rosolio di limone is most often enjoyed after dinner as a digestif.

You can use Ferrante’s recipe, with minor adjustments, as a master recipe to make other citrus-based liqueurs such as Rosolio di arance (using the zest of seven freshly picked oranges), Rosolio di mandarini (using the zest of eight freshly picked “but not extremely ripe” tangerines) and Rosolio di lima di Spagna (using the minced zest of eight Spanish limes).

Homemade Italian Liqueurs

Over the course of 2011 we will explore a number of different Italian liqueur recipes. Some of these recipes include familiar ingredients, such as citrus and herbs. Other recipes contain unique ingredients, such as green walnuts. And one recipe uses an ingredient that surprised me: fresh milk.

The American edition of Larousse Gastronomique defines a liqueur as “an alcoholic drink of more than tablewine strength, usually incorporating some form of spirit.” Although accurate, for our inquery this definition is too narrow. We will focus on infusing ingredients in a neutral alcohol that contains added sugar.

Commercially made liqueurs abound. Some of these products are good, but most have no soul. Homemade liqueurs made with quality ingredients are better than their commercial counterparts. Likewise, certain Italian liqueurs are difficult to find outside of Italy. If you want to try Nocino (made with green walnuts) or Latte di Vecchia (Old Lady’s Milk, made with fresh milk and citrus) you might need to make your own. Luckily, creating these homemade liqueurs is easy and a delicious way to take advantage of seasonal offerings.

A recently translated Italian regional cookbook published by Oronzo Editions features a number of Italian liqueur recipes. The book written by Maria Pignatelli Ferrante and translated into English by Natalie Danford is entitled Puglia - A Culinary Memoir [2008]. This excellent book is worth seeking out and adding to your cookbook collection. We will use this book as a springboard for our inquiry.

Ferrante writes that there is a long tradition of preparing homemade liqueurs in Southern Italy. “Having liqueurs around meant the host could always offer ‘a little glass’ of something to drink. In fact, the word bicchierino, which literally means ‘little glass’ is synonymous with liqueurs.”

All of my cookbooks on the food of Puglia speak to this region’s gracious hospitality. Ferrante reports that during a special occasion, such as a wedding or baptism, a host would serve rounds of liqueurs to guests. “To make clear that the refreshments were abundant and varied, a different color of liqueur was offered to the guests on each round.”

I hope you enjoy this upcoming series. If you decide to try out a recipe or two, I encourage you to share the fruits of your labor with those with whom you enjoy to Bunbury.