hamish_heatherin Ambers, Spices & Gourmands · Edinburgh ·
ChallengeDescribe vanilla without the word sweet
Aye, here's a wee challenge. In the shop, folk who come in call half the casks 'vanilla' and stop there, as if the word did the job. Split a vanilla pod or open your extract and describe it without saying sweet. It's dreich outside, so I've had time: damp raisins and an old leather wallet.
10 comments
dex_in_brooklyn
wet tobacco and the inside of a cigar box. you're not getting sweet out of me
kemi.cocoa
Custard skin and warm milk. Is custard allowed?
hamish_heather
Custard's fair. Sugar is where I draw the line.
ingrid_berlin
Wood and a little smoke under it, all bass, nothing high.
maeve.moss
Here's a thing. The pod I split smelled of a damp hayloft and prunes and the rosin dust that settles on the fiddle and it took me a good while to say it, so it did. A slow air, not a jig.
juniper_jules
Leather and dried fruit, and a bit like bisque fresh out of the kiln, that warm dust.
joon.yuzu
The pod and my vanillin baking essence are basically two different materials. Pod smoky, boozy, woody; essence clean and flat. The Class on natural versus synthetic, with its pod against vanillin exercise sets this up properly.
teddy.tonka
Bourbon barrel and burnt sugar. Oops, sugar. Disqualified.
frankie.incense
Vanillin is only about 2% of a cured vanilla pod by dry weight, so I'd guess the raisins, tobacco and hayloft in this thread come from everything else in there. Mine was definitely church pews after a wedding [beeswax and old oak].
hamish_heather
Aye, grand list. Stealing 'cigar box' and 'custard skin' for the shop, and I'll try not to loose the hayloft one.