These Monks Give a French Twist to Italian Limoncello

Unless you've had homemade limoncello, made in the North End of Kansas City, you haven't actually had limoncello. Sorry to the Olivetans!

From Aletiea

By Louis de La Houplière

To diversify their income and meet the needs of their community, a group of monks in France are now producing this Italian liqueur with their own unique recipe.

You may have heard of limoncello, a lemon-flavored Italian liqueur. But have you heard of “Limoinecello?” Those two extra letters make a new French-Italian hybrid brand name, reflecting the unique recipe used by these five monks living at the Our Lady of Holy Hope (Notre-Dame-de-la-Sainte-Espérance) monastery in Aube, France.

Brother Brice, an Olivetan Benedictine monk, proudly brandishes a bottle of the abbey's new flagship product. It's sure to amuse regulars and attract new visitors and potential buyers of the products made by this handful of brothers who live according to the Benedictine rule.

Since early October of 2025, this lemon liqueur has been a new source of income for the monastery, which had previously limited its activities to the production of tableware.

But what does this abbey in eastern France have to do with the production of a liqueur that is most readily associated with the Italian sun?

“Quite simply, it's an economic necessity,” Brother Brice, who is spearheading this change, replies without hesitation to Aleteia.

Recalling the Benedictine adage, “You’re only truly a monk if you live by the work of your hands,” he makes no secret of the financial difficulties facing the monastery.

“Neither pottery nor publishing are sufficient to fully meet the needs of our community,” he admits. “And then, it was too much of a time investment for five monks.”

“When I arrived, the monks were already considering an economic conversion of the abbey,” he explains. Liqueur quickly became the obvious choice.

“We turned to food products. People always need to eat and drink,” he says with a smile.

Expertise from the Holy Land

The other reason given by Brother Brice is more personal. He found a way to honor his Mediterranean origins by launching “Limoinecello.” His Italian maternal family “settled on the French Riviera in 1910. In Mediterranean Italian circles, limoncello is a sacred ritual to conclude a meal.”

He never forgot the family recipe, the only one that made him “appreciate limoncello.” Before living in his current community in France, he lived for almost 28 years in Jerusalem, in a monastic community in the Holy Land, which had itself started making limoncello. Brother Brice didn’t have much trouble convincing the other brothers.

Ironically, this monk, who arrived at the monastery three years ago, doesn’t hold his alcohol well. “After one or two glasses of wine, I begin to have mystical experiences,” he jokes.

“I tried to recreate the limoncello of my youth,” he explains.

After two years of trial and error and “dozens of tastings with the brothers” to find the unique recipe that would become the abbey's trademark, the monks are now marketing this drink, which they have renamed “Limoinecello.” 

“We got together and it was our prior who came up with the idea. It has a friendly ring to it,” he says with a laugh. For lovers of aperitifs or digestifs, a 50cl bottle costs €24.90, about $29 in US currency.

“We aim for artisanal production, with a love of a job well done and exceptional products,” Brother Brice tells us.

The abbey shop and a wine merchant in Troyes will be the only places selling this unique product in this corner of France. They started with 500 bottles and hope sales will demand more.