Watkins Double-Strength Vanilla Extract

Posted on January 6, 2010 
Filed Under Watkins Vanilla

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Watkins has manufactured its famous Double-Strength Vanilla Extract since 1895.  This wonderful product has been a favorite of bakers and home cooks since its inception.  The product still remains Watkins number one selling product.  That’s saying a lot, considering the fact that Watkins manufactures and markets 350 different products.

Everyone thinks of vanilla as a product which is easily and quickly manufactured.  The actual truth is that years are required from the time the plant first pushes through the soil to the finished product which is shipped to consumers in bottles.  Six to nine months are required for the flowers themselves to develop into vanilla beans.  Actually, a total of about three and on half years elapse from the time that the vanilla planter begins his work until the ripened beans arrive at Watkins plant.  Countless hours of hand work are required before the bundles of beans are packed in their cases to be shipped to Watkins factory.  Once the vanilla beans arrive at Watkins, they are stored for at least a year before they begin the manufacturing process.

You can’t make good apple pie without good apples.  And you can’t make good vanilla without good vanilla beans.  Watkins uses only prime, plump, sunkissed vanilla beans, the choicest of the crop. 

The beans as received at the manufacturing laboratory are first chopped very fine and weighed into white oak casks where sugar is added to aid in developing the flavor, and the while mass is covered with an equal volume of cologne spirits and distilled water.  The casks are now carefully sealed and placed on racks where they are turned from day to day for a period ranging from 4 to 6 months.  This is called the macerating process.

After the beans have been properly macerated, they are deprived of their soluble constituents by a percolating process.  A process where liquid passes downward through the mass and performs the acto of exhausting, straining and filtering at the same time. 

The resulting liquid (Percolate) is now adjusted so that each 100 cubic centimeters will contain the soluble matter from not less than 10 grams of beans and the resulting product is again stored in casks for aging.

Vanillin is developed within the beans during the process of curing, and is the chief flavoring agent, but this statement must be qualified by making mention of the more volatile aldehydes and esters which develop during the process of careful manufacturing, and seem to come from the combined virtues of the properly made vanilla extract.

It is of further interest to note that while the delicate flavor of true vanilla is fixed and fascinating in all cold food products, it can be more or less destroyed by the action of heat.  However, Watkins uses a process with proprietary ingredients that, when combined with a high grade bean, seem to fix these same aldehydes and esters so that they are ever present in cooked foods as well as in icings and frostings.  This is why for over a hundred years Watkins has touted the fact that our Watkins double-strength vanilla extract is “bake-proofed,” with that strong Watkins vanilla flavor existing even after foods are cooked with our vanilla.

Watkins chooses only the finest Madagascar Gold Coast Bourbon vanilla beans.  Our vanilla contains only 8% alcohol, versus 35% alcohol for pure vanilla extract made by our largest competitor.  Watkins double-strength vanilla is both bake-proof and freezer-proof.  Winner of the Gold Medal Award for Highest Quality in the 1928 International Exposition in Paris, France — our great tasting vanilla has been a popular stable in North American households since 1895.

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