Weekend Scientist | Mason Jar Observations – Week 1

 I still remember my first encounter with lemoncello – the summer I turned 22, my family decided to do a family reunion in Alaska. One night after dinner, the waitress brought over a neon-yellow drink for us to try. I must admit, I was quite hesitant to try it for the first time. After all, the color looked a little weird – it was like someone stuck a highlighter in a bottle of something for a few months and bottled it. I cautiously took a sip as my cousins looked on. The tangy lemon flavor kind of wakes you up after a meal, and the sweetness of the sugar is a nice surprise. The waitress explained that they made it in-house, and gave us the recipe to try at home.

I had completely forgotten about that drink until my first trip out to Boston a few years later. On one of the slow weekends, a few of us had nothing to do, so we decided to explore the back-streets of the north end (little Italy). My friend Francesca was proudly Italian and would take point in guiding us through little Italy (and also navigating menus at some of the restaurants). On that particular Sunday afternoon, we were on Salem street, when she ducked into a little corner store when we were taking pictures of something. She emerged five minutes later with a bottle in a paper bag (I know…classy). Before she took it out, she explained the drink to us non-italians. The minute she said lemon-zest I had the strongest flashback to that day in Alaska. She pulled the cork off the bottle, poured out a little into a paper cups, and handed it to us. Although it wasn’t as good as the homemade variety, it was quite nice to feel that lemony zing once again.

The other day, I was bumming around on the NYT Times Magazine Blog, and in their food section there was an article about lemoncello. This time, there was something different about the recipe. They called it lemoncello, once removed, and the process is quite odd. Basically, the concept is similar to the extraction of flavors out of spices – the object (it can be fruits or spices) is suspended over some grain alcohol, and the container is sealed. The alcohol somehow manages to extract the flavor through a process the NYT described as D.S.M. (delicious scientific magic) – which I clearly don’t understand. The cool thing about this DSM, is that since the alcohol (at such high proofs) volatizes naturally at room temperatures, it somehow creates an environment within the still that extracts the flavors cleanly. Of course afterwards you'd add water and sugar to get it down to a manageable proof.

Anyways, yesterday I decided to embark on this scientifically-motivated culinary journey to see what all the hubbub was about. Of course, me being me, I had to change it up a little. Since my favorite color/fruit is orange, why not try orangecello? This process works with any citrus fruit, but of course, it's important to note that depending on the size of fruit, you'd have to vary the size of the jar. If you're gonna do pomelocello, you'd have to have a pretty gosh-darn huge jar.

Apparently the entire process takes between 9-12 weeks (depending on how warm the climate is), and requires a lot of patience. Opening the jar would set the process back to square one. I swung by target and bought all the necessary equipment for the homemade still (I know…what must my parents think??) – gallon-sized mason jar, cheesecloth, and grain alcohol (everclear – apparently vodka is too weak to extract anything). Yesterday afternoon, I picked the oranges from the backyard and put the still together very carefully while trying to avoid contact with any open flames (lest it summons the fire dept. to my house once again). The directions say for this to be stored away from sunlight, but in a warmer place for 9 weeks. Since it’s the middle of winter, I figure I’ll play it safe and go 10-12 weeks. In the time leading up to it, I’ll try to do periodic updates (maybe once a week or something); hopefully over the next 10 weeks or so we’ll know if DSM really works.

*sigh* the things I do in the name of scientific endeavors…