The miracle of limoncello

Consider the paradox of lemons. In Italy, one associates them with scented groves. A few years ago, Helena Attlee wrote the book The Land Where Lemons Grow, in which citrus fruits become a golden thread running through the history of Italian agriculture. Yet though the lemon is arguably the most beautiful of fruits, its tart taste is bracing. A spremuta di limone finds a swift route to any shaving nicks.

But the lemon can be sweetened, in the form of limoncello, an after-dinner drink of no great subtlety, good for pouring over puddings but hardly a match for the fortified wines of the Iberian peninsula. That said, there is an exception. Most limoncello is produced on the Amalfi coast, that enchanting region south of Naples. But there is an outlier, which comes from Godalming.

A friend of mine, Andrea Cali, has political opinions so extraordinary that only an Italian could hold them.