American Limoncello Is All Grown Up

Zesty, sweet, and bright yellow, limoncello is one of the most famous cultural byproducts of Southern Italy. It’s also one of the most misunderstood.

To its detractors, the lemon-based liqueur is cloying, syrupy, and unserious—an industrial-made digestif that’s only worth ingesting in shot form. But a growing number of artisanal producers in Italy and abroad have helped to reform limoncello’s reputation, all while the ever-trending limoncello spritz cocktail continues to increase the demand for it.

In the United States, a wave of excellent hyper-regional limoncellos are proving that the spirit has truly gone global, and that it’s worth sipping and enjoying thousands of miles away from the Amalfi Coast.

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Veritable Distillery Limoncello Bottling Close Up Stonington CT. Courtesy of Veritable Distillery

Bottling Sunshine—Even in the Cold

New England might not be the first place you think of when you hear the word “limoncello,” but maybe it should be. Connecticut’s Veritable Distilling makes a limoncello that is tart, balanced, and aromatic. The artisanal distiller aims to produce its spirits with raw materials that existed or were commonly traded in Colonial New England.

“Limoncello made in New England brings to mind Colonial-era food preservation techniques,” says Veritable Distilling co-founder Finn Pryor. “This region has a storied history of finding every possible use—and storage method—for every part of a meal. For fresh and historically scarce ingredients like citrus, it makes perfect sense that we would find ways to preserve elements of that ingredient year-round for special occasions, such as making marmalade or limoncello.”

Plus, there’s the Italian-American connection. Southern Italian immigrants have played a huge role in shaping the region’s culture, and they’re the ones who brought over the family limoncello recipes in the first place. “There’s a large Italian community here in southeastern Connecticut,” says Pryor. “Friends often talk about their family lineage, from when they first came over by boat, all the way back to their third great-grandmother in Sicily. It’s common for families to make their own soupy and limoncello, so it felt natural for us to give it a try.”

Lina’s Limoncello founder Lina Marchetti Reisigl. Courtesy of Lina’s Limoncello

Across the country, the variety of ‘cellos is pretty astounding. In Seattle, Letterpress Distilling makes a floral, bright “arancello rosso”—think limoncello, but made with blood oranges and honey instead of sugar. In Indiana, Hotel Tango’s limoncello offers a higher abv (35% instead of the usual 30%) and drinks “like vodka mixed with lemonade,” says Wine Enthusiast writer-at-large Kara Newman, who rated it 91 points.

Of course, Italy is still the blueprint—and often the place where Americans discover limoncello in the first place. While her operations are based in the Netherlands, Lina’s Limoncello founder Lina Marchetti Reisigl has observed the surging American interest in the liqueur, and she suspects it has a lot to do with tourism. “As a rapidly growing cream limoncello, we’ve seen more people discovering and enjoying limoncello through increased visibility in retail—not just new customers, but also the millions of Americans who travel to Italy each year and come back wanting to recreate that experience at home,” she says.

Increasingly, bars and restaurants are playing around with limoncello in cocktails, and that’s adding to the buzz. Raegan Hall, the general manager of Corzetti in San Francisco, can’t sell enough limoncello spritzes. “Limoncello is so on trend right now,” she says. “Guests are all about tasting something light and fresh.”

Letterpress Arancello Rosso. Photo by Wren Morrow

Making Use of Abundant Citrus

It helps that there are so many excellent limoncellos to work with, right in California. Hall likes HelloCello Limoncello di Sonoma, an organic limoncello produced in nearby Sonoma. “But my favorite limoncello was made by my cousin and given to us as gifts on her wedding day. Very small batch.”

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Indeed, the best limoncellos will always be the ones made by friends and family. Small-batch, backyard limoncello thrives in Florida, where the citrus is abundant. “I bartended at an Italian place, and the owner would bring in homemade bottles that I loved and then later craved,” says Wine Enthusiast managing editor Jordon Kaplan, who is based in Jacksonville. “So when I finally had a home with a lemon tree, I was already big into homestead type projects—it was 2020—so that was an easy one. Also, lemons ripen in the winter in Florida, so they make great holiday gifts.”

She suspects that most Italian places in the state have a secret bottle stashed away for friends. While limoncello’s reputation has grown more respectable, the drink is still a party in a bottle. As Kaplan puts it, “A couple shots will send you to the moon.”