Many people leave their kids money and property. While I plan to leave both of those things to my children in the hopefully far-distant future when I depart this earth, one of the legacies I hope my daughter will treasure most is the bottle of Endless Vanilla.
Nearly 20 years ago, my husband was trying to figure out what to do with some bottles of Crown Royal gathering dust in our basement. He had received the Canadian whiskey as holiday gifts when he was an auto racing writer. He didn’t drink the stuff, and none of our friends did.
“Hmm,” I said. “I bet it would make great vanilla.”
And thus the vanilla tradition was born. I sliced open some vanilla beans, dumped them in a bottle of the whiskey, shook up the bottle and waited a couple of weeks. The resulting vanilla extract was mellow and lovely.