Nine days

Nine days to go.
And if life gives you lemons, make limoncello. One of our friends was given a recipe for this lemon flavoured liqueur in Italy a couple of years ago: and after hearing about it I was intrigued. After letting the intrigue bubble for a few weeks, I went out and bought a bunch of lemons and some high-proof grain alcohol (near 100% alcohol).
I pared the skin of the lemons into a bottle, filled it with the grain alcohol, and waited: every day or so, turning it to make sure the flavours get pulled out of the rind. The colour is lovely: a deep golden hue to the liquid.
I'm going to mix it with an appropriate amount of a sugar syrup to get it to the right strength/sweetness, and assuming that it tastes okay, we're taking it to the beach.
Since the bottle of grain alcohol contained more than would fit in a bottle stuffed with lemon peel (just the yellow, not the white pith), I used the rest to make some more vanilla essence. I expect this batch of vanilla to turn out quite full of flavour.

Yours, in essence,
N.