Pure isn't pure. Thank you FDA.

I'm a bit of a purity nut. I never used margarine because butter is pure and natural. (Yes, I can be a contradiction here too, however, so don't call me on it when you see it!) I like my brulee plain, and my martinis old-school – rarely dirty and never gussied up.

I decided to make vanilla extract last month. Fairly easy to do. Here is a great place to get your beans, and there are recipes there also. Very simple. About 5 beans to 8 ounces of vodka. Then just time.

My extract had been marinating about five weeks, so I popped the top and tasted it. Hmmm. Tastes like alcohol. No surprise there, I guess. For years, people have been known to drink extract for its alcohol content. So I opened a vanilla extract I had in my cupboard. It tasted more vanilla-y; sweeter. I wondered why. Mine had been soaking plenty long enough. Two weeks is often suggested, but I wanted to go the extra mile and waited a very long five weeks. I contacted Beanilla and this is the (very helpful) response I received.

The flavor comes out of the extract during the baking process. At this time, the heat evaporates the alcohol from the extract, leaving behind a rich vanilla flavor.

Store bought alcohol often contains artificial additives or sweeteners, which will definitely mask the flavor of alcohol if you are sipping from the bottle.

Additives?! To vanilla extract? It never occurred to me. So I pulled it out and sure enough, it had glucose syrup added. Sugar! But the label said “Pure Vanilla.” I pulled out my other bottle of vanilla. It said “100% Pure.” Another taste test ensued. The “100% Pure” bottle tasted just like mine, alcohol-y.

I might not ever have thought twice about the difference between pure and 100% pure, had I not wondered how companies like Fisher can sell “pure” honey when I knew good and well it was NOT pure. I did a little research about honey and found that for an item to be considered “pure” by the FDA, it need only contain 51% of the named ingredient. Fifty-One Percent. If it is labeled 100% pure, we are to know that nothing has been added.

Now, doesn’t this just chap your hide? Pure isn’t pure.
LESSON: Look for 100% pure when it matters.
The rest is just smoke and mirrors.