After scooping my way through more than a dozen options, it was clear that not all vanilla ice cream is the same.

French colonists first brought vanilla to Madagascar’s neighbouring island of Réunion in the early 19th Century. It grows as a clinging vine, reaching lengths of up to 300ft (90m).

Vanilla bean origin: ... a rich legacy of 100+ years of tradition. Made with non-GMO and kosher ingredients and crafted from the highest quality Madagascar vanilla beans, ...

Imitation vanilla owes its flavor primarily to synthetic vanillin, while vanilla beans boast more than 200 other volatile compounds, leading to a “full, complex, subtle flavor,” McGee writes ...

In 2017, after a cyclone decimated farms in the mountains of northeast Madagascar, where around 80 percent of the world’s natural vanilla is grown, the price of beans leaped to more than $600 ...

It also uses vodka, which is a flavor-free spirit that will allow the pure taste of the vanilla bean to really shine through. Its applications in cooking and baking are limitless. Ingredients 1 ounce ...

"Vanilla beans look like a green runner bean (a bean vegetable), hence the reference to 'bean,'," says Jennifer Boggiss, CEO and co-founder of Heilala Vanilla, a B-Corp certified vanilla producer.