With Italian pop music blaring through the speakers, Francesco Amodeo cuts his way through more than 300,000 walnuts over the course of two days.

As the president and master distiller at Washington, D.C.’s Don Ciccio & Figil, Amodeo hand-cuts each of the California green walnuts for the nocino. The two days of hand-cutting is intensive, and the entire process of making this traditional Italian liqueur takes nearly a year from harvest to sale.