Learn how to make homemade vanilla extract with just vanilla beans, alcohol and a little patience. This simple step-by-step guide shares the method I use at home, along with tips on choosing vanilla beans, selecting the best alcohol and why summer has become my favourite time to start a new bottle.

Discovering the story behind one of the world’s most treasured botanicals Vanilla - Vanilla plantifolia - with young green vanilla pods on the vine If you’ve ever baked a cake, stirred vanilla into porridge or opened a bottle of homemade vanilla extract, you’ve experienced one of the world’s most beloved aromas. Sweet, warm and instantly comforting, vanilla has become so familiar that we rarely stop to wonder where it comes from. Yet behind every pod lies an extraordinary sto