Check your pantry.  Now check your liquor cabinet.

Do you have artificial vanilla?  Do you have bourbon?  If you answered yes to both, chuck the artificial vanilla.Let’s go back to our history of bourbon.  It’s from Kentucky.  It’s made with grain alcohol made from corn.  But here’s the important part.  It has to be aged in new, charred, oak barrels.  In the case of scotch, you can reuse the barrels.  In fact, used bourbon barrels head over to Scotland and are used for scotch.

Why is this important?  Because oak contains trace amounts of vanillin, which is what makes vanilla vanilla.  A few places I’ve looked online says that oak is used to make artificial vanilla.  Bourbon has to be aged for some period of time (2 years seems to be the minimum), which gives plenty of time for the oak flavor and the vanillin time to get its way in.  The resulting bourbon isn’t as intense as real vanilla, but for a number of recipes you can replace artificial vanilla 1:1 with bourbon.  I like Makers Mark (which is aged 6-7 years), but whatever quality bourbon you have will work.

There’s still places where you will want the actual vanilla flavor, but the next time you make something, give it a try.