Peel the skins off 8-10 lemons, trimming away any of the white pith.

Put all of the lemon peels in a large jar or carafe, and cover the peels with the vodka. Cover the container with plastic wrap and set aside for 4 days at room temperature, letting the vodka extract flavor from the peels.

After four days, strain the vodka mixture to remove the lemon peels and set aside.

Heat water, sugar, and thyme leaves, plus 2-3 reserved lemon peels from the vodka mixture, on the stovetop until the sugar dissolves and the syrup reduces by about one half.

Cool the simple syrup and combine with the vodka mixture.

Pour into bottles to gift, serve over ice by itself, or chill and serve with a splash of soda water.