Making Nocino

        Part of the beauty of living here in Italy is all of the new things you get to learn.  If you are not shy about asking questions most people will show you things that are part of the culture.  That is how I started to learn to make Nocino.

         Our landlords had asked us if we would purchase some grain alcohol for them.  It seemed they were going to make something.  At the time we thought lemon cello as that is only liquor we knew of that was made with grain alcohol.  We had asked if they would show us how.

         The next day I met my landlady's sister-in-law, Giussepina, down in the cellar of our building.  I knew by this time, thanks to our neighbor Giun Franco, that we would be making a liquor with nuts but otherwise I was still in the dark.

         Upon arriving in the cellar Giussepina is standing at cutting board whacking the heck out of something with a mallet.  Closer inspection enlightened me only partially when I saw she was taking round green "fruit" from a wash and pulverizing them with the mallet.

          I understood with my terrible command of Italian that you needed to do this to forty-eight of these unknown orbs and stuff the pieces into a jar then fill the jar with the alcohol.  From there she told me that it sits in the sun for some time and you give it a shake now and again.  Later after the fermentation time is up spices and water will be added.  Eventually the whole mess will be strained and bottled. After my time with Giussepina I asked if she would help me make one for us.  She gladly agreed.

        Dave purchased another bottle of alcohol and my landlady, Andriana brought up the curious little green orbs that I knew now were immature walnuts call nocini.  The next thing I knew she and I were sitting on my kitchen floor pulverizing nocini and shoving them into a jar.  The jar is now on my back balcony fermenting until next process needs to happen.

         I will keep you posted on what we do next!