Make Your Own Vanilla Extract

It’s about 6 weeks before Christmas, a respectable amount of time to make your own pure vanilla extract and bottle it up to give as a gift. It takes about 8 weeks for the extract to sit. So, if you start making it within the next week or so, you can have a supply ready in time for the holiday gifts.

Why bother? Because it’s so easy to make your own vanilla extract. It smells amazing — much nicer than the “pure,” stuff in the plastic brown bottle on the grocery store shelf. Plus, you can keep topping it off with more vodka, so you will never run out. (It’s recession proof!) You’ll probably end up keeping a jar for yourself, because it’s nice to have this on-hand.

Here’s how:
Supplies:

* 6 vanilla beans
* 2 cups vodka
* glass jar with tight fitting lid. (Recycle something.)

1. Cut open the vanilla beans, but do not open it all the way.
2. Place vanilla beans in a glass jar or bottle with a tight fitting lid.
3. Cover completely with the vodka.
Give the bottle a good shake every once in a while. Store in a dark, cool place for 2 months or longer.
4. You can now pour into individual little bottles for gifts with a label. If you insert a vanilla bean into each jar, you can continuously add more vodka as you use it up. So, it’s perpetual… never running low.
5. Shake well before using.

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