DEAR DAME EVELYN , Will you please share your limoncello recipe, as noted in the Bay Guardian of Nov. 5, 2003? Thank you.

A would-be limoncellist

Ma petite,

I share with pleasure. (Usually.) First, a bit of background: limoncello is a lemon drink from Italy's Amalfi coast – that's southeast of Naples, for you cartographers. If I might be permitted a bit of foreshadowing: limoncello is a bit like syrupy, alcoholic lemonade and is best served ice cold, i.e., straight from the freezer where it is kept. Basically it is infused vodka mixed with sugar syrup. So, for the infusion, peel the zest from eight or so lemons, add the zest to a quart of vodka (a big wide-mouth canning jar is a useful vessel for this operation), and set aside for a month or so. Meanwhile, juice the lemons, add the juice to two cups sugar in a small heavy saucepan, turn the heat to low, and add just enough water – as little as possible, I emphasize – to melt the sugar. You should not need to bring the temperature of the sugar anywhere near boiling. And the less water you can get away with, the better, because a good thick syrup will resist freezing even if kept indefinitely in the freezer. Let the syrup cool, mix it with another quart of vodka, and set it aside until the infusion is complete.

On that happy day, mix the two – syrup and infusion; you'll need an even bigger canning jar or tub of some sort – then set aside for another month to 45 days. Voilà. More fastidious types might want to strain out the zest before bottling the limoncello and putting it in the freezer.

Ordinary supermarket lemons work well. For orangecello, Dame Evelyn suspects one would be better off with bitter or Seville oranges; she couldn't find them and used Valencias instead, and the result has been good though not great. As for the estate-bottled Meyer lemon limoncello: that is still a work in progress.

Icily, E. G.-S.