For those insistent on extract itself: I’ve recently discovered that http://www.besserkochen.de carries Nielsen-Massay “Bourbon Vanille Extrakt”, though it’s more expensive than McCormick’s, of course. (I don’t, incidentally, agree that vanilla paste is better suited to cooking, as that website claims.)

And a warning: I was lured by Dr Oetker’s “Finesse Natürliches Bourbon-Vanille Aroma” — as it’s sold in little packets of liquid I thought it might resemble my trusty extract — but they seem to have snuck some vanillin in there as its taste was cloying and manufactured.

Meanwhile, I keep meaning to steep some vanilla beans in vodka and see if the results are as pleasing as they’ll have you believe…

Well, British law is that “flavouring” or “flavoured” means it *is* the real stuff, where as “flavour” means it’s fake. As in “strawberry flavour yoghurt” (it’s all sawdust and machine oil) versus “strawberry flavoured yoghurt” (it’s actual strawberries).

That’s the way it was in my youth anyway, when you used to get taught this kind of stuff in Home Economics classes. I would like to hope that not everything’s been deregulated since then, but if it has, I’ll remember not to buy any sawdust-oil-mix yoghurt next time I’m there.