Rum splashes out the top of the jar to the wooden table for the fifth time. I am discovering just how easy it is to over fill these jars with my concoction of vanilla extract. On the upside, My hands smell amazing. Being soaked in rum & vanilla seeds isn’t so bad. This must be what a swashbuckling rum-drunk Pirate hand’s smell like. Err, when he works in a bakery. 😉
I began this homemade brew of vanilla extract 3 months ago. Bought the 2 bottles of rum, and placed the vanilla beans inside to sit and let the vanilla seep into the alcohol of the rum.
Ideally these 2 litter size bottles of rum would percolate a month or two longer with the vanilla beans inside them before being poured to the smaller jars. But the holidays are here, and I intend to use these as gifts for fellow actors and a few directors I am working with on movies coming up. (Plus, I shoved one fresh vanilla bean into each tiny jar, so they will keep percolating in people’s cupboards after I give them away.)
Now if I can just keep more of the vanilla in the jars than sloshed across the table. Patience. I need to fill them more slowly.
I can’t take credit for knowing how to do this at all. My fire-red-haired friend sent me a note with the link on
Making Homemade Vanilla Extract over at AlexadraCooks.com. So I’ve followed those directions.
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| Vanilla Beans |
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| Vanilla Seeds on my Fingertips |
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| Screwing the cap on the final jar. |
Now, off to learn my lines for this next film. What about you? Are you making any gifts to give this year during the holidays?
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| Cutting out the vanilla bottle labels I made |
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| The Finished Bottle |
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Does it taste like vanilla flavored rum? or Mainly vanilla? Great gift idea.
It's a vanilla extract, so it may smell like vanilla flavored rum, but it doesn't taste like vanilla flavored rum. More like vanilla extract that is used in baking.