Homemade Nocino

Nocino is a liqueur flavored with walnuts. Last summer, my oldest brother harvested 30 nuts from our black walnut trees and made his own nocino, by soaking the quartered nuts in grain alcohol and adding spices and simple syrup.

In northern Italy, as I understand, the nuts for nocino are traditionally harvested on Saint John's eve (June 24), and the finished liqueur is consumed at Christmas. Here in southeastern Pennsylvania, we have nothing close to nuts on our trees by June 24. We don't have sizable nuts until early-to-mid July.

My brother came to visit this week, and yesterday evening we harvested about 100 nuts. He is going to make several batches (for gifts). He talked me into making my own as well.



There are a lot of nocino recipes available on the Web. The nuts need to be immature (ours were a little too developed -- some of them were very hard to cut). Cut them into quarters and put them in a pitcher with the alcohol. You should have about 30 nuts for a liter of alcohol.

Add to the pitcher one stick of cinnamon, 3-6 whole cloves, and the peel of one lemon. Cover the pitcher tightly with plastic wrap held by rubber bands and place it in a warm place, preferably where it can get some sun. Once a day, shake or swirl the contents. After about eight weeks, strain the contents of the pitcher, through cheesecloth, into a bottle with a stopper; add a cup of simple syrup (2 parts sugar dissolved in 1 part water); put the stopper in the bottle and store in a dark place for 60 days. Then it should be ready.