Yesterday we visited Kotekas backroom brewroom. The sign at the corner of the road said winery, but when we rolled up it was anything but. No grapes for starters. I wasn’t looking for wine anyways. I was in the market for vanilla beans. Well, any vanilla products, but specifically the beans. The sign also said vanilla, just fyi. It said a bunch of things, banana wine, vodka, tasting. Sign me up please.

So you roll up, the road starts getting gnarly but the pull off is right there. There’s more signage letting you know you’re in the right place. “Toot ya horn” – I kid you not was on a sign by a large outdoor table covered in 6″ cacao seedlings. As you toot ya horn you can hear the guy holler from inside some sort of unlit rape den. Which turns out to be where all the goods and vanilla are stored.

It’s hot, it’s dark, but sweet baby jesus does this place ever smell amazing. There’s bottles stacked everywhere, different liqueurs in different stages of fermentation. But past all that is the table, piled high, covered in linen. Piles and mounds and mountains of vanilla beans. Thousands. As well as a large bowl of cacao, one uncracked seed pod in with them. If only customs would let me live my life. I decide against the large $280 pack of beans and get two smaller packs. He makes up a second for me as we’re standing there. Picking through to find nicely cured beans, he says once I get home to put them by the wood stove and let them dry out a bit more. This place is too humid to let the beans finish.