Vanilla Absolute

Vanilla Absolute is made from cured vanilla beans, and ours comes from Madagascar. The beans are wildcrafted, and the absolute is produced by solvent extraction, which is why it pours thick and dark rather than thin like a distilled oil.

The chemistry here looks nothing like a typical essential oil. Ketones dominate, close to 83% in our recent batch, and most of that is a single molecule called 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (about 70%). Smaller amounts of nervonoylacetone (around 7%) and an aliphatic dione (about 5%) fill in behind it. Aldehydes come in near 5%, including furfural and vanillin itself, which sits under 1% even though it carries so much of the aroma.

Every batch we bring in is independently GC-MS tested, and the full report for each one lives right here on this page, so you can read the chemistry yourself.