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A Beer Run

I got an email today from Red Coyote about their 3-mile Thursday night Pack Pike Run. It’s a weekly run from their shop followed by free beer from COOP Ale Works. Anne the Wife is out of town so I was flying solo tonight with the 50 plus runners.

I kept pace with a couple people and finished the 3.3 mile run in just under 31 minutes. Me and my 9:30 mile were destroyed by most of the more experienced runners, but there were plenty of others just out to have a good time. The free beer helped too.

Vodka & Vanilla Beans

A friend of mine posted something about making homemade vanilla extract and giving it out at Christmas. For the sake of taking forever to make something simple, I Google’d “homemade vanilla extract” and ordered vanilla beans off Amazon.com. The beans were delivered December 30th and I braved the pre-New Year’s Eve crowds at Byron’s Liquor Warehouse for a liter of Ketel One. I’m pretty sure I was the only person in the store buying vodka and not planning to drink it that night. Or any other time in the next few months.

All in all, it’s simple - quality vodka and good vanilla beans. That’s pretty rad considering most vanilla extract you buy at the store is loaded with other goodies and crap I’d rather avoid. It’s supposed to be cheaper too considering how much you spend to make it.

None of the different recipes I found online matched up as far as vodka to vanilla bean, so I went for the whole package of 16 beans and a clear liter of liquid courage. Slice the beans lengthwise and totally submerge them in the vodka. You’ll need to take a solid swig to make room for the beans, but that’s the fun part. What sucks is having to wait three weeks to three months for the extract to be ready. Again, the different recipes I found had different wait periods, but they mostly agreed to keep the bottle in a dark place and shake every few days. I’ll open it up in a few weeks and see how it’s doing.