How To Make Extract of Vanilla
Vanilla.
The pod or bean of the Vanilla planifolia yields a perfume of rare excellence.
When good, and if kept for some time, it becomes covered with an efflorescence of needle crystals possessing properties similar to benzoic acid, but differing from it in composition.
Few objects are more beautiful to look upon than this, when viewed by a microscope with the aid of polarized light.
Extract of Vanilla Recipe
Vanilla pods, 1/2 lb.
Rectified spirit, 1 gallon.
Slit the pods from end to end, so as to lay open the interior, then cut them up in lengths of about a quarter of an inch, macerate with occasional agitation for about a month; the tincture thus formed will only require straining through cotton to be ready for any use that is required.
In this state it is rarely sold for a perfume, but is consumed in the manufacture of compound odors, bouquets, or nosegays, as they are called.
Extract of Vanilla is also used largely in the manufacture of hair-washes, which are readily made by mixing the extract of vanilla with either rose, orange, elder, or rosemary water, and afterwards filtering.
We need scarcely mention, that vanilla is greatly used by cooks and confectioners for flavoring.
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