Flaherty Wines

I used to have a list a mile long of all the ingredients that are not available in Chile. I spent a lot of time and effort getting those ingredients into my kitchen—either stocking up during trips home or begging my mom and sisters to track them down and send them. In some cases, a little goes a long way, so the occasional bottle of bitters or jar of asafetida powder isn’t really a problem. In other cases, I’ve learned to substitute with local ingredients, so when, say, my pine nuts run out, I can still make a pesto with walnuts or cashews. Some things just can’t be substituted, however, and real vanilla extract is one of them.

Virtually all the vanilla extract sold in Chile is imitation. A few years ago I found some pure extract in a gourmet food store, but it cost something absurd like US$20 an ounce. For years, this was one of the things that I would stock up on when we traveled outside of Chile. Eventually it donned on me that vanilla extract is, in fact, simply an extract, so how hard could it be to make at home? I’d been saving all those little brown bottles over the years, so one day I filled them with vodka, added a split vanilla bean, and tucked it away in a dark cabinet. Finally! A reliable source of good vanilla extract!

I use Stolichnaya vodka because it was the best brand available on the local market when I first started making extract. There are many more options available now, but Stolichnaya works fine for my purposes, providing a clean, neutral alcohol to absorb the vanilla flavor. Although I’ve seen people recommend using rum, most rums are aged in oak, which infuses it with a whole range of flavors that I don’t want in my vanilla. My goal here is pure vanilla.

To make at home, simply cut a vanilla bean in half and then split it lengthwise. I use one whole bean for small (2 oz) bottles, one and a half or two for medium (4 oz) bottles, and two and a half or three for my largest (8 oz) bottles. Place the split bean in a dark bottle, fill with vodka, and store in a dark cupboard (preferably with an even, cool temperature) for six months or longer. The extract will keep indefinitely, and the flavor deepens the longer the extraction. I therefore prefer to stock up and let the bottles sit a long time before using. When you use the extract, it will contain the tiny vanilla seeds, but they generally don’t show in the finished dish. Finally, when I finish a bottle, I dry out the bean and use it to make vanilla sugar (just place the bean in a jar with sugar for about a week to infuse the sugar with a light vanilla character).