homemade vanilla extract

Way back in January (I think) I announced I was going to get some vanilla beans and make my own vanilla extract. Well, it's been finished for some time, but I haven't gotten around to posting the results yet. So here goes I drained the extremely dark liquid and discarded the vanilla beans. The vanilla extract was extremely strong smelling, mostly of booze. The smell faded away after I left the jar open for about 5 minutes. I poured the extract into 2 canning jars I had purchased just for this experiment. I was a little hesitant to try it, I thought it would knock me on my butt. I figured I'd use it in a recipe instead of sampling it straight from the jar. In my opinion, it made a difference in the brownies and cake. But maybe it's just my imagination, because nobody said "holy Moses, this tastes like vanilla". But that's probably a good thing, I wouldn't want one flavor to overpower the rest. Would I do it again? Yes, and I plan too prior needing the vanilla. I considered doing it now so I will have lots of vanilla extract for holiday baking. I think I would use vodka the next time around. Not that I know using the vodka would be better, just to try out different ways to make vanilla. I want to see if the vodka vanilla works better than the rum vanilla. What would I do differently? I'd make sure I had jars/bottles ready to put the vanilla in. I'd make a note to myself to shake it up every day (I skipped it some days, I forgot). So I would say if you use as much vanilla as I do, making your vanilla is a great alternative.... Here's the basic recipe 5 whole vanilla beans 8 ounces of alcohol (bourbon, rum, vodka - anything that's about 35% alcohol) Take the vanilla beans and split them down the middle. Place vanilla beans in container. Add the booze, seal the bottle and keep it in a dark place for 8 weeks. Shake the bottle every day for a minute. After 8 weeks, the extraction process should be finished. The liquid will be dark. There's some disagreement on what happens to the vanilla beans. Some people re-yse them, making another batch. Others leave the beans in the extract and add a little booze to replace what they used cooking. I tossed mine because they looked mushy and were in small bits and pieces. (that's because I thought if I exposed more vanilla to the booze, it would become vanilla quicker & give a different flavor). So here it is, you can get cracking on those Christmas gifts;)