I hope I can make someone else’s journey to sustainability and accessibility a little kinder, a little less lonely, and a lot more vanilla-y.

In my journey towards accessible sustainability I discovered a passion for baking that exploded. I rapidly began replacing store-bought bread and desserts with my own from-scratch baking. Unfortunately, I quickly found myself deeply unsatisfied with how lackluster vanilla extract seemed to be. Much to my own frustration it seemed that no matter how much I used, it was never the pronounced, identifiable, flavor I wanted it to be. Not to mention, it was EXPENSIVE and I felt the quality didn’t match the cost in the slightest. Eventually, I took the plunge and invested in vanilla beans myself. I started my first vanilla batch and several months later I was absolutely blown away by how different it was from store-bought. I was obsessed.

Over the next few years, I began fine-tuning the recipe proportions and experimenting with different forms of preparation and then I finally ended up with the plush vanilla flavor I was hoping for. I was both ecstatic and wanted to go even further. I began creating different vanilla varieties such as a boozy Bourbon Vanilla that added depth to both sweet and savory dishes, Rum Vanilla that added a cut-through sweetness and heightened flavors without overtaking them and a Spiced Vanilla that was cured with a myriad of warming spices and adds an out-of-this-world sweet kick that doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Factors in sustainability as a default, not a chore.