reeflections
Senior Member
I think that it is possible that there are some substances in the vanilla beans that are water soluble. The everclear has very little water, so less of those compounds are extracted. I don't understand most of the study that you attached, but I did notice that methods 2a and 2b used different concentrations of ethanol. The lower concentration extracted a little more vanillin and a lot more glucovanillin.
The big question is taste. What would be the result if you added the same quantity of each extract to some filtered water? Which tastes better?
That makes sense. I'll let you know in a few months which is stronger and which tastes best.