Shortest post ever. Zest. Add booze. Wait…Ha! But what about? Yeah, okay. There is a little more to it. First off, you have to find the damn yuzu. Not so easy for anyone outside of California, but not impossible either. We are very lucky in this regard. Yuzu is grown in Cali and this year, BBQ Mike himself came in and hand delivered some yuzu from his parents tree.

Yeah, baby. There is nothing better than a random visit from the legend, BBQ Mike. You never know what magic lurks in his plastic sacks…

Yuzu comes in earlier than the other citrus fruits. Usually end of November. Its a treat. The unicorn of the citrus world which is full of amazing stuff as is. But, as far as it goes in that world, yuzu is the top of the food chain. There is a reason why it is held in such regard by the Japanese. However, if you are planning on buying a bunch in order to have the juice on hand, think again. Yuzu is LOADED with seeds. The average lime may yield an ounce to an ounce and a half of juice, the yuzu…Not so much. Maybe a half ounce on a good day.

The real reason to have yuzu behind the bar is not for the juice, which will go bad in a day anyway, but to capture the zest. I do this in two ways: by making sherbet and by making yuzucello. This post will be dedicated to the latter.

First off, you will need a high proof grain spirit of some sort. We use Spirytus Wesoly from Poland which is a whopping 192 or 96% alcohol. Yeah, you read that right.

Zest the yuzu as best as you can. Try not to include any of the bitter pith.

After zesting, juice your yuzu. Unlike most cello recipes, I use the juice just because there is so little of it to begin with and also because it imparts great flavor. The Spirytus Wesoly is high proof enough and can handle a smidge of dilution.

Zest, juice, booze, time. That is it. Wait about a month or so, then strain off your cello in a common chinois and strain again in a coffee filter. Once you have your pure booze, weigh it and add equal parts simple syrup to it.

BBQ Mike gave us 12 large yuzu. To this I added two bottles of Spirytus (1500 ml) which ended up being 1412 grams, so with the addition of the simple syrup, it becomes 2814 grams, or close to 3 liters. Pretty good haul.

No trick to it, just patience. The longer it sits, the better it is. This recipe is a little below 96 proof or 48%, probably more like 45 depending on how much juice you get.

This is your AI generated image for this post, #442, 2/3/26