It’s not New Year’s Eve without alcohol, right?

Right.  But while you’re drinking yours  - we’re going to make ours.  Our own vanilla extract. For vanilla extract to be classified as pure, it must be a mixture of 35% alcohol and 13.35 ounces of vanilla bean per gallon. We don’t really need a gallon, though. But we also don’t want to spend $8 for two ounces of the stuff from Greedy Corporation Inc.

The Cheap Gardener and Cocktail Hacker each did some homework on it. Depending on how we crunch the numbers (and I do not love math, by the way), it comes to about 8 beans per cup of alcohol.

DIY Vanilla Extract, baby.

• Vodka? Check.
• Vanilla beans? Check. (There are a gazillion types. Happy deciding!)
• Jar? Check.

Slice vanilla beans length wise, & then into 2″ strips. Drop them in the bottle, let ‘em swim for about 8 weeks. Shake the bottle about once a week, and keep it in a cool dry place. In March we’ll have our first batch of our very own vanilla extract.

And we can top it off as we use it, & it becomes a never ending supply. One of our favorite crepe filling recipes is ricotta cheese flavored with

• vanilla extract,
• orange peel,
• dash of sugar &
• diced cucumbers. Nom.

Or, we could sacrifice a couple of beans for a Vanilla Cloud cocktail.

To 2012. Cheers.