Limoncello

Over the past few weeks, I've become particularly fond of Limoncello, very much departing from my typical alcoholic fare of vodka, scotch, or beer.

For anyone who has never had the pleasure of sipping a nice glass of Limoncello, it is a sweet, lemon flavored Italian liqour. Seriously, guys, this stuff is awesome. My wife and I were at Buca Di Beppo (and awesome italian chain restaurant) a few months ago, and I ordered the Limoncello, while she ordered an "Italian" Mohito. Turns out she liked the Limoncello more than the Mohito, so she stole it from me.

A couple days later, I went out and grabbed a bottle of Limoncello from the liquor store, as wifey seemed fond of it. I now know that Limoncello is ridiculously tasty, and is a perfect treat after a long evening of electrical wiring. There are three sacred things to me in this world; watching baseball, drinking good scotch, and watching 24. Now, watching 24 with a glass of Limoncello is even BETTER!

So, what did I decide to do, to, you know, help out this newfound addiction to Limoncello? I decided to MAKE it.

I found some recipes on the internet, and it seems to be very easy to make. Essentially, you're infusing 1.5L of Everclear (grain alcohol; 190 proof) with the lemon flavor, using the rind of 15 lemons, and letting that steep for two weeks. After that, you make a simple syrup of 6 cups of sugar and 1.5L of water. Let that cool, strain the Everclear of the rind, and combine the two. Let that sit for about 40 days, and there you have it...LIMONCELLO!

I've got it figured out that once the water is mixed in, the alcohol content will go down to about 95 proof, which is still firewater. Some recipes call for the use of 100 proof vodka, but there is too strong a taste with vodka. Everclear tastes like...nothing, really.

The smell of the lemon/Everclear concoction right now reminds me of a cleaning product. I mean, lemony fresh cleaning products are essentially just alcohols and lemon scent, so besides drinking this, I could degrease the engine of my car!

I'll let you know in a month or so how it came out.

Yeah, I know, I know...

For all of the two people that regularly (or irregularly) read the incoherent ramblings I post here, these last few weeks must have been hard, huh? No posts from me...I mean, it's just as bad as that time that teh interweb went down in college, and all the tech nerds couldn't download their "research material" and other such things.

But anyway, here I am. So, what's been going on with me? Where to start...

Today is Seamus' birthday, and apparently, either today, or tomorrow is Wendy's birthday. So, happy birthday to them. Seamus is my dog, by the way, and he's one year old. I think he'll get something special in his dinner tonight!

Speaking of Seamus, we found out that he is considered to be a "Dudley" Yellow Lab, which is essentially an albino. His nose, lips, and the skin around his eyes are all pink, rather than black or brown, which is the breed standard. I saw the Dudley classification on Wikipedia, and my wife did some searching, reinforcing our conclusion. Seamus is now the Wikipedia standard for Dudley labs, and you can check out the article here. Seamus is halfway down the page, on the left side, near the "Dudley" section. My wife and I have taken to calling him "Dudley Mooright" as one of his many nicknames is "Seamoo," shortened to "Moo." Yeah, we love our dog. Probably too much so.

Let's see...what else...

We started rewiring the house. The new 200 amp panel was installed two weekends ago, while Meghan was down in North Carolina visiting her mother, and I'm hoping to have the inspector out this Friday to give us the all-clear, so to speak. He's already been out once, to examine the service entrance and the water ground, now he just needs to come to make sure that all our circuits are labeled correctly. In this old house, the wires were cloth covered Romex wires, and they all need to be replaced. The wiring runs from one room to the next, with little to no rhyme or reason, so after he tells us we're golden, I can begin the process of putting all new receptacles, wires, switches, and boxes in. Of course, this means that I have to cut a SHITLOAD of holes in the walls, so after I finish the electrical, I can start the drywall, and then the wife can finally start painting!

I don't remember if I've spoken of this before, but I've become complete addicted to 24. Jack Bauer is my hero. We started a few months ago with Season 1, and since then, we've finished about a season every three weeks. We're currently about 5 hours into Season 4. I'm very surprised that after this long, Kiefer Sutherland has been able to keep the show fresh and interesting. Exciting is a bad word for the show. Keeps you on the edge of your motherfucking seat for all 40 minutes of each episode and your heart keeps skipping beats while it's on its way to a 200 BPM average wow this was a long and rambling run-on sentence, is more fucking like it. I don't know what I'm going to do when we're finally all caught up with Season 6. I mean, I'm going to wait until Season 6 comes out on DVD, but when Season 7 starts, will I watch it each week, or will I just DVR it and watch it all when I want to, like I did with the first 6 seasons?

Speaking of Kiefer, I wonder what his politics are...I know that Donald Sutherland is a wacko leftist, but what of Kiefer? Wikipedia doesn't list anything about his politics there. I can't imagine he'd be a bunnyhugger, though. I mean, when you write and produce a show, don't your own beliefs and feelings start to enter into the show? If he was a leftist, wouldn't his character be more of the "Al Gore" or "Al Franken" type, preferring to bore the terrorists to death with diatribes about global warming and why the flat tax would discriminate against the hard working common man, instead of taking a sniper rifle and blowing a hole in the back of some Muslim's head? I don't know, though...

I have been meaning to get a gun. Owning a home with a particularly beautiful wife in it makes me somewhat nervous from time to time. Not that we live in a bad area, or anything. I think that Cherry Hill, NJ was listed as like the 7th safest place in the US to live. Besides, most of our neighbors are dead (cemetery, and all). But, there comes a time in a man's life where he might need a handgun. I don't know the first thing about guns, other than that I've shot them throughout my life, and very much enjoy shooting. I'm not particularly good at it, I just like shooting at pieces of paper. I do, however, anticipate that at some point in my life, I will need to use the gun, whether it be from a home intruder, or from the coming revolution in this country. Yes, I believe this country is heading for a revolution. No, I don't believe the commies will win. (They're afraid of guns, and all)

Unfortunately, the gun laws in NJ are ridiculously strict. Once you apply for the permit, there are all kinds of background checks and such, as well as waiting periods before you can actually buy something. Now I hear that John Corzine, the asshole that the people of this asshole state elected to lead them (I voted for the other guy), is wanting to pass a law that would ban most gun sales in NJ.

Great, so now the only people with guns will be the criminals. Oi-VEY!

I know, rambling post. I'm all over the place here, but my head has been chock full of nougaty goodness.

I hope everyone had a good Easter, and again, happy birthday to Wendy, and to my little boy, Seamus.

Steph, I posted, OK! I'm going back to my wire cutters and lineman's pliers now...