Lime Shortage

Checked out the “El Super” in Santa Fe Springs California. Persian limes are small but felt juicy and are $1.29 a pound. Key limes are 99 cents per pound, excellent for pies-not so good in cocktails.
Cheers

My Asian market that normally has baseball sized limes that produce 2+ ounces of juice at 5/$1 is now at 2/$1 and those are not looking so hot. I entertained a couple friends last night and squeezed 12 ounce of juice from my Costco bag. Most of those limes were yielding just .5-.75 oz each and I used over half the bag. Figure the whole $5 bag will make about 20 ounce of juice, so I'm roughly getting 4 ounces per dollar. Definitely the best bang for the buck as of late.

On 2015-08-09 17:22, AceExplorer wrote:

Here's the first of what I expect will be a total of four of these baskets.

Ace you need to give tips on growing a hefty producing lime tree. We planted one 3 years ago and it hasn't given us a single fruit. Will check to see if there's a thread here already. If not, you should start one cuz your home grown limes look yummy.

[ Edited by: mikehooker 2016-05-19 10:46 ]

Thanks for that heads-up - I've never been very impressed with the limes from Costco in the past but at this point...

Serving at a party this weekend and looking for a deal. The limes here lately are making .5 oz each. And Kroger wants 69 cents for them! They do offer a bag of 9 for $2.50. Costco bags are what I intend to do.

My other suggestion, and maybe you already do this, is to squeeze them twice. After you do both halves, put them in together and do it again. Gets a bit more juice out of them. At least with the hand juicer. My stand juicer obliterates them. Nothing left.

So I guess the answer is yes- this is happening again? Anybody know why or when it might end? The onset of summer is a really lame time to be having lime issues..

On 2016-05-19 10:57, Swanky wrote:

My other suggestion, and maybe you already do this, is to squeeze them twice. After you do both halves, put them in together and do it again. Gets a bit more juice out of them. At least with the hand juicer. My stand juicer obliterates them. Nothing left.

Like you Swank, I too squeeze em twice. After the initial squeeze I set em in a bowl next to my cutting board. I let em rest a few minutes and have gotten more than a half ounce out of 3 or 4 “shells”
This next tip might be common knowledge. With the half lime cut side down I make a half inch cut in the unsqueezed lime . My barkeep bud swears you’ll get more juice this way. I don’t do this when Mai Tai’s are on the menu. Can’t use the shell for garnish-It’s useless.
Cheers

On 2016-05-16 04:53, mikehooker wrote:
Curious what the typical wage difference is between US and Austrailia. Many States in America still have a minimum wage sitting around $7-8 an hour whereas I'm betting Oz is quite significantly higher than that. I'd imagine that translates to much higher pay in skilled professions as well. Just wondering how impactful that is when it comes to your seemingly high cost of limes and booze. Perhaps it's an unfair comparison if your earned dollars are twice that of ours.

Where does your citrus come from? Do you have native breeds or do they come from CA or Mexico?

Whilst that might be true in some states if you do a comparison of Melbourne with L.A. and S.F here you'll see that the figures are quite similar for certain things and in others there can be quite a difference, both in your favour and sometimes mine, depending on what it is.

The limes come from Queensland and that $1 cost is about 72 cents U.S. with the currency conversion at the time of writing. So that is close to the 69 cents that both HopeChest and Swanky have seen them for BUT that is on the expensve side for you guys and cheap for us because they are in season. When they are not in season and are $3.00 each (and can be even more) that is about $2.72U.S, so even when they are at their cheapest here that is more than what you pay when they are at their most expensive for you guys. That is a massive difference when incomes are similar.

And if you want to understand the reason why booze costs us so much then you might want to read this. You may be able to understand that better than i do.

On 2016-05-19 23:19, nui 'umi 'umi wrote:

This next tip might be common knowledge. With the half lime cut side down I make a half inch cut in the unsqueezed lime.

Not common knowledge to me David. I actually saw a bartender do that not to long ago, make a slice in the lime lengthwise before slicing it in half. I asked him why he did that and he said the lime shell splits easier in the squeezer and you get more juice out of it. Guess that makes sense but i always forget to do it anyway.

And i've also never tried squeezing the two shells together a second time. Going to make a few drinks tonight so i'll give it a go.

On 2016-05-19 10:42, mikehooker wrote:
Ace you need to give tips on growing a hefty producing lime tree. We planted one 3 years ago and it hasn't given us a single fruit. Will check to see if there's a thread here already. If not, you should start one cuz your home grown limes look yummy.

Good idea, but I'm not sure there's much to share, I'll give it some thought though. Basically it's a combination of where you live and your weather, plus a hefty amount of luck with the particular tree you buy. My medium sized tree is thriving and producing lots of big fruit every fall, and I can already see little dime-sized and nickel-sized limes all over the tree now, so this fall looks very promising. But I have another tree which is younger and has only produced about 10 limes to-date in its short 3-year life. I'm giving this tree another two years though, as sometimes young trees may focus on growth over fruit when they're young.

Ultimately, you may want to consider a second tree from a different nursery and see how it goes. And the variety of lime makes a difference too -- I chose Persian lime trees based on Jeff Berry's recommendations.

I definitely "squeeze & freeze" for the off-season when spur-of-the-moment drink needs arise, or when you don't want to make a run to the store for fresh limes. Nothing is as good as fresh squeezed, but in a pinch my frozen juice is 100% pure and has not been pasteurized.

On 2016-05-20 07:52, AceExplorer wrote:
Good idea, but I'm not sure there's much to share, I'll give it some thought though.

Let me add that twice a year I fertilize my trees with citrus-formulated fertilizer. I also spray organic soap and oil as needed to keep leaf curl spiders away, and I water regularly. Also, my best tree is in direct sunlight, something which I was not able to do for my younger tree which is underperforming.

Last week my local Mexican market had limes 12/$.99. I posted it to the Texas Tikiphiles FB page to inform the locals and someone said he saw 25/$1 (!!!) at another Mexican mart. Then a bartender friend said he just picked up a case of 200 for $12 at the Restaurant Depot. Has the shortage turned into a surplus? Hope it lasts.

It should be stated that the ones I picked up for cheap were fairly small and not that juicy. Most recently I picked up a 5lb bag at Sam's Club for $4 and they're yielding upwards of 1.5oz each so I'm pretty pleased with that deal.

In anticipation of our party last week, we got a Restaurant Depot card and bought a 200 count case for 12 bucks which works out to around 16/$1 but I honestly think there is well more than 200 in the box. They're medium sized and juicy, yielding atleast an ounce and upwards of 1.5 oz per lime. We squeezed I think around 75 ounces for the party and went through atleast 50 of that. Spent the next couple days making more drinks and even limeade to use up the already squeezed juice and realized we have too many freakin' limes! Been offering them up to friends or anyone in the area who will take 'em. Been squeezing and freezing them into 1/2 ounce cubes, then popping them out and putting them in freezer bags (40 ounces thus far). Last night made a double sized batch of falernum, zesting 18 more and just finished squeezing another 60 ounces that I put in the fridge awaiting the cubes currently in the trays to solidify so I can freeze the next batch. I still have like 50+ limes. This is insane!

What else can I do with excess limes/juice? Is it worth making a lime cordial? Does anyone ever use such a thing? Let's get creative. I don't wanna pound my liver just to not waste $12 of limes.

On 2016-07-07 15:02, mikehooker wrote:
In anticipation of our party last week, we got a Restaurant Depot card and bought a 200 count case for 12 bucks which works out to around 16/$1 but I honestly think there is well more than 200 in the box. They're medium sized and juicy, yielding atleast an ounce and upwards of 1.5 oz per lime. We squeezed I think around 75 ounces for the party and went through atleast 50 of that. Spent the next couple days making more drinks and even limeade to use up the already squeezed juice and realized we have too many freakin' limes! Been offering them up to friends or anyone in the area who will take 'em. Been squeezing and freezing them into 1/2 ounce cubes, then popping them out and putting them in freezer bags (40 ounces thus far). Last night made a double sized batch of falernum, zesting 18 more and just finished squeezing another 60 ounces that I put in the fridge awaiting the cubes currently in the trays to solidify so I can freeze the next batch. I still have like 50+ limes. This is insane!

What else can I do with excess limes/juice? Is it worth making a lime cordial? Does anyone ever use such a thing? Let's get creative. I don't wanna pound my liver just to not waste $12 of limes.

Have you ever tried Edith Afif's lime pickles? They are wildly popular and a great thing to serve with cheese, nuts, salami and other hors d'oeuvres. They're a good bar snack, and you could always give away jars to friends as well.

The recipe is in one of Nigella Lawson's books, but you can find it here:

http://www.splendidmarket.com/2010/03/edith-afifs-lime-pickles.html

[ Edited by: rummy_dearest 2016-07-07 16:01 ]

Persian lime from Mexico - price at Costco - as of 12/3/2016 here in Florida is US$4.99 per 5-pound bag.

I understand the avocado trade from Mexico is currently heavily impacted by "labor issues" in that country.

On 2016-12-05 08:50, AceExplorer wrote:
Persian lime from Mexico - price at Costco - as of 12/3/2016 here in Florida is US$4.99 per 5-pound bag.

Same price for a bag at Sam's Club here in Austin. Frankly, they're the only limes I buy anymore. They're big, smooth skinned and juicy.

This minor rant isn't really on the topic of this thread's original title, but since people were last posting about lime prices, and I didn't really see a need to make a new thread....

I went to Safeway this evening and bought some limes. Since I haven't been drinking since the beginning of March, I hadn't been paying attention to their prices. A year ago they were 3 for $1, and a few months ago they were 2 for $1. Now they're $1 a piece. Granted, I live in a tourist town in the mountains of Colorado and things are generally more expensive up here, but that's a bit much.

On the bright side, I guess it means I won't go overboard on Mai Tais next week after Lent.

I wrote a really long reply and when I went to hit submit something happened and my reply went away. So in lieu of rewriting my entire lime shortage rant I’ll just say I feel your pain.

The Lime-pocalypse is back. There have already been quite a few stories about it. I have seen prices here in Florida at least double in the past couple of weeks. The quality has also gone down. Last weekend, it took 9 limes to get 2 oz of juice.

I just paid $0.69 each for some sad, golf ball-sized limes in my area. Both a massive price increase and a massive reduction in size.

Hamo limes are 99 cents at the Safeway here in Tacoma WA too!

[ Edited by tikicoma on 2022-04-13 22:25:55 ]

I was reminded of this thread after watching this video recently:

How Mexico Grows Limes On Orange Trees To Supply The US | Big Business | Business Insider
https://youtu.be/4wGVWQyLE94

Was surprised a couple of weeks ago when limes were three for a dollar, then shocked yesterday when they were going for $0.68 each. I mean, what are they, limes or eggs...?

What about lemon itself, is it more expensive than lime?

I have commented on this thread more than once, the last time was about 7yrs ago (scroll back towards the top of this page), and things are still the same. When you guys complain about limes being expensive, that's around about the minimum we pay.

I was in a grocery store two days ago and limes were 50 cents and lemons 79 cents. I blame the cocktail revival

I haven't bought any citrus since I last posted, but yes, generally one lemon costs more than one lime. However, I believe at the time in question, a lemon was going for $0.79.

They make it sound amazing and quite dramatic that they have figured out a way to grow limes on orange trees!!! But the truth is that almost all commercial citrus (including the ones you buy at your home improvement store) have a wild/bitter orange rootstock on the bottom and grafted lemon, lime, tangerine, or whatever on the top. Occasionally a branch will come up from the rootstock and grow bitter oranges if you're not watching for it. I cut a 3 foot bitter orange branch off my Meyers Lemon last week while pruning