There are others that are much cheaper, but the descriptions contain weasel words like “contains vanilla extract”, or “vanilla blend with real Madagascar vanilla”, or, like McCormick, don’t even tell you where it comes from or what is in the bottle. Those aren’t products that I or any respectable baker would use.
Better and better. Thank you so much for the summary. I have sodium hydroxide from my pretzel experiments, so I’m well on my way to collecting that list. When I have them all I may be back to ask for a more detailed procedure.
Frankly, I think it’s a terrible idea. You’ve got acute toxicity solvents, highly flammable solvents, peroxide forming solvents, chronic toxicity solvents, environmentally hazardous solvents, strong acids, and strong bases. There’s issues with proper disposal of hazardous waste, with proper storage of dangerous materials, and most of those chemicals are on the DEA List II watchlist, meaning you will be scrutinized by any supplier. I wouldn’t want to do that procedure as written even at work, partially because I flatly refuse to work with ether. I’d be fine with it as an experiment for an undergraduate lab (with some changes for safety), but trying to do it at home is just asking for trouble, both in terms of safety and in terms of legality.
As much as I like Hunter S Thompson, there really are lots of dangers with diethyl ether. It’s highly volatile, highly flammable, and prone to forming explosive organic peroxides. Almost anything you can do with ether you can do with safer solvents.
As an aside, our dog’s anal glands have a distinct vanilla note to them. In faint traces, the vanilla is very noticeable, but the other butt-notes soon overpower the vanilla-notes with proximity. I’ve had a few gross-out moments of “Hmmm, is someone making cookies? Better go check and OH DEAR MOTHER OF GOD!”
Good Grief, it sounds like a terrible idea. My internet sarcasm communicator must be broken. Simply having some lye around the house is hardly “well on my way”. Don’t worry, you have thoroughly talked me out of attempting this project just by describing what it would entail.
On the other hand, if I could just find some beaver anal glands, maybe that process is more approachable…