The Swedish National Food Agency (Livsmedelsverket) has confirmed that anal secretions from the beaver can be used to provide a taste similar to vanilla in baked goods and sweets.
It may taste like ice cream, but I’m still not rimming a beaver.
Castoreum has been used for centuries (at least) in perfumery, where when diluted about a billion to one, it adds a floral/vanilla note.
But you can keep your beaver nutsack out of my ice cream anyway.
This is why doing stuff on a dare isn’t always bad. The guy who made this discovery was no doubt double-dog dared into doing it, and now the world is better because of it.
So was Simone de Beauvoir’s like French vanilla? Nelson Algren’s literary estate is silent on the matter.
Similar to vanilla? I thought beaver tasted more like chicken.
As Amateur Barbarian says, how is this current news? Did they also confirm that drinking water is good for you.
The beauty is that if you go out of your way to avoid artificial flavoring because you think they’re bad, this is considered “natural flavoring.” Castoreum is also used in strawberry and raspberry flavorings. Civet ass scrapings are used in perfume. For ethical reasons, sometimes civetone is synthesized through other means.
If your beaver tastes like chicken, maybe it needs to be given a shower.
Hmm, maybe I should switch from artificial to real vanilla in my baking…
Well, Cook’s and other say there’s no difference, so go right ahead. It won’t be because there’s castoreum in the artificial stuff - like most perfume agents, it’s one of the costliest substances on earth. Y’ain’t gonna find it in gallon jugs of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Vanilla.
Oh, okay then. 
Who else heard that in Samuel L. Jackson’s voice?
But have you ever tasted chicken butt secretion?
Don’t knock it 'til you’ve tried it. 
I thought they smelled like fish. 
Friend: This cake tastes like ass!
Me: It’s supposed to!
You know what?
It was Morgan Freeman for me.
It’s the 40 or 50 guys who lost a bet and had to lick the other non-vanilla tasting parts of the beaver I feel sorry for.
Beaver butt juice: it’s nature’s candy!
Lose a bet, lick a beaver? Hmmm, doesn’t seem so bad to me.