The day has finally come to retrieve the limoncello we started in October from the basement and bring it up into the daylight of the kitchen. It had turned a shade of yellow that resembled a urinary tract infection, but we didn’t let that dampen our enthusiasm. This step was supposed to be reasonably easy, but it turned out making “simple” syrup was not so simple for me. I am always amazed at how I can master something like Julia Child’s Reine de Saba, and yet things like simple syrup and hard boiled eggs can elude me.

Following the directions verbatim, the syrup just never seemed to thicken. Here are the recipe’s directions:

“In a large saucepan, combine the sugar and water; cook until thickened, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Let the syrup cool before adding it to the Limoncello mixture. Add to the Limoncello mixture from Step One.”

Do you see the word boil in there anywhere? I don’t. And yet every other simple syrup recipe I Googled started with adding sugar to BOILING water. So down the drain went batch number one, and back to the drawing board it was! Other than that little snafu, this was quite an easy step, and a nice excuse to catch up with my friend.

We couldn’t help ourselves, we had to try just a wee little spoonful of our lovely concoction, and boy was it good! In another twenty days or so, we will strain and bottle, just in time to share some holiday cheer.