It wasn’t a total loss. On Saturday, the family piled into the Blazer and we headed over the Strasburg to the antique dealers. I picked up two nice decanters. I scrubbed them out using the bottle brush and plenty of hot water+soap. I filled one with my homemade amaretto and saw exactly how much sediment was in it. Turns out, not too much. Next time, I’ll double-up the cheese cloth to filter out more of the lemon zest. I’ll also use some brown sugar to give it a darker amber hue (plus the touch of molasses should be nice.)

I’ve been toying with the idea of making moonshine to serve as the alcoholic base for future liquor-making endevors. I need to research the legality of that. Quite frankly, I’m happy using vodka as the base for amaretto but I feel it would be more fun to do it all – distill my own alcohol then turn it into something more, like a Southern Comfort or a Drambuie-style liquor.