Yesterday I made homemade vanilla. I had been searching stores around here for vanilla beans and couldn't believe the price. Wal-Mart wanted $8 for 2 and the health food store wanted $12. So we turned to the internet and ended up ordering it from a company called beanilla.com. They had vanilla beans from all over the world. They also have vanilla sugar and vanilla paste. I ended up getting beans from Mexico. It was cheaper to order more so I bought 10. With 10 beans I was able to make 2 bottles of vanilla. By bottles I mean, Vodka! I had no idea that vanilla was made out of Vodka?! I knew there was alcohol in it but I didn't realize that vanilla beans and Vodka were the only ingredients to vanilla extract! Cool! I found the cheapest Vodka the store had. We watched a show one time on name brands and Vodka was one of the products tested. They had the expensive kind and cheapest and in between. The cool thing was, nobody knew the difference when the sticker was pealed off the bottle. So, cheap I go. Then I cut the vanilla beans in half length wise and scraped out the seeds.
After I scraped the seeds out I put them into the Vodka bottles and then placed the bean in there with them. I screwed the lid on there tightly and shook it up! The bottle needs to have a good shaking at least once a day. I read on other blogs that they put the Vodka in other containers but I just figured I would use the bottle it came in.
I read this recipe off of the beanilla website. They also had a recipe for homemade Kahlua but I don't have a use for that, tehe. The Vodka needs to sit with the vanilla for 2 months. Since Christmas is only 46 more days away, I will let it sit right up until I can bottle it into pretty bottles with a really pretty tag on it. I can't wait to give them as gifts!!!!!
