Nocino is a liqueur from Northern Italy made with green walnuts. TSB and I managed to get our hands on a box of these rare, under-ripe beauties and first made a batch of nocino. Green walnuts are available mid-June, and are over-ripe by mid-July. When right, the innards are still soft enough to cut through, and jelly in some parts where eventually a nut and shell would form.
Nocino
We split this recipe between 2 half-gallon mason jars.
- 30 green walnuts, soaked overnight and quartered
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 5 cloves
- 1 vanilla bean
- zest of one lemon
- 2 orange slices
- 2 1/2 c maple syrup
- 1 liter of vodka
- 500 ml dry vermouth
- 1 tsp fennel seed
- 1 tsp szechuan peppercorns
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Combine all ingredients in jars and let sit for at least a year, shaking every once in a while. Apparently this stuff may not be fully primed for 3 years.
I’ll have to have you over to take a photo now; this stuff looks like swamp water.
Everyone that comes over is like, “WTF is THAT?!”