Way-back, when I was a Jr. Chemist at A. Schilling (spices & extracts) - I did some of the QC on the beans and their extracts: Double-shoebox sized metal cans full of bundled beans: kept in a safe-like room, for all obv. reasons.

The Madagascar beans were the Primo: gorgeous filigrees of crystalline vanillin all about the small, string-tied bunches + much more intricate sets of odors than you ever find, sniffing any extract.

These were macerated/chopped, before leaching via 190 proof! EtOH, (which came by TANK CAR..) then greatly diluted with the extracts from the drier, much cheaper Mexican beans. I used to take home a ~pint bottle of the pure Madagascar solution, on rare occasion: much higher concentration of alcohol, probably ~ 150 proof IIRC (diluted to 35.1% for production - the EtOH was accounted for, down to a fraction of a liter == else the Horrendous Tax would apply.)

I've never since encountered a Vanity bottle of vanilla (priced for Yuppie$ everywhere) that could equal the magnificent aroma, taste of those 'appropriated' samples. I liberated a handful of the vanillin-coated beans, on occasion - many cooks bottled a few I passed out; used them for special desserts.

I suppose that now, a body could obtain such beans... then, few had any idea about the quality spread and the impoverished level that reached the masses.


{sniff}