“Jacob, can we get this floor swept?” he asked one of his employees.
Jacob set down a rack of thyme bottles. “It’s just herb grit, nothing dirty.”
“It looks messy. We’ve got a visitor coming, so please sweep it up.”
Jacob nodded and went for a broom. Normally they didn’t sweep until the end of the day, but Annabelle should see the factory at its best.
Their facility was spotlessly clean, with dozens of tables covered by a sheet-metal alloy to ensure near-sterile conditions. The painted concrete floor was swept and mopped with a disinfecting solution daily. Huge windows let in plenty of light, which was good, because the factory floor was an entire acre, and it would be gloomy without natural light.
Jacob had just finished sweeping when a carriage arrived outside. Gray grinned and jogged toward the door. The pain that roared to life in his head forced him to slow down, but he still smiled like an idiot as he helped Annabelle alight from the carriage.
“You look spectacular,” he said. The loose bun in her hairallowed tendrils to dangle and float around her face, but it was her smile—that smile—that captured him. It lit up her entire face, and he could have stood there and admired it all day.
“I can’t wait to see your factory,” she said. “This is where all the famous Delacroix spices get bottled?”
“Right here,” he said, holding an arm out to lead her into the factory.
He loved the way she gaped at the stainless-steel spice mills, for they were twelve feet tall with automated grinders for pulverizing material fed in through the hopper. He stopped at each mill, letting the operator explain the unique features of the various machines they used. Some were customized for lumpy plants, while others were designed for seed. The hammer mills used rotating weights to pulverize dry spices like cinnamon, coriander, cloves, and allspice. Calibrated machines produced the exact particle size for each spice in a reliable, consistent fashion, while high-oil spices like mace and nutmeg needed to be processed by a roller mill.
Annabelle asked all the right questions, but the noise from the hammer mill was ratcheting Gray’s headache up to unbearable levels. A trickle of sweat rolled down his back, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the drying ovens or if his fever was on the rise. He should have doubled his dose of iodine that morning.
“Let me show you the vanilla,” he said over the din. “It’s done in a separate building out back.” Anything to get away from the heat and noise.
“You have a whole building just for vanilla?” she asked.
He nodded. “Vanilla is very delicate. It can’t be exposed to heat once the processing begins. We just added the pods this morning, so you can catch a glimpse of this early stage.”
He breathed a sigh of relief as they left the main factory and headed to the brick building behind it. This facility was the last project he and his father had completed together. It wastheir finest accomplishment, both a scientific and a commercial marvel. It looked like a plain brick building on the outside, but as they stepped inside, the pair of five-hundred-gallon gleaming steel vats dominated the view. There was no one inside, for once the process had begun, vanilla distillation required little attention.
He glanced at Annabelle to gauge her reaction, but her eyes were closed and she looked in ecstasy. Her hand was over her heart as she breathed deeply.
“I think I can die happy now,” she said. He was used to the aroma but loved watching Annabelle experience it for the first time. The smooth, luscious scent was flowery, sweet, and a little milky. It was possibly the most universally beloved scent in the world.
“We developed a cold extraction process,” he explained. “Most vanilla extract is made by heating the pods, which means it only takes four or five days. Vanilla has a complex bouquet of flavors, and heat will kill off most of them, leaving a one-dimensional taste. My cold process takes almost a month, but you can smell and taste the difference.”
A small crate of vanilla beans sat on the worktable. They arrived from Madagascar in a dried state, looking brown, shriveled, and a little oily. He used a blade to slice a bean down the center, then grabbed a butter knife to scrape out the seeds.
“Give me your hand,” he said, then spread the grainy paste on her fingertip.
She looked delighted as she touched, smelled, and scrutinized the oily seeds. “Can I taste it?”
“Please,” he said with pride. “The grains are only a piece of the flavor. I’ll show you how we prepare the mash.”
He chopped the skin of the vanilla pod into one-inch sections, then added it to the paste. “We prepare several pounds of vanilla pods just like this. Scrape out the seeds, chop the skins, then add it to a screen. We use a cold infusion of waterand alcohol to continually bathe the mash. That’s what’s going on in those tanks behind you. A pump is circulating the liquid through the mash, and over time it absorbs the flavor.”
“It sounds like a coffee percolator.”
He smiled. “It’s exactly like a coffee percolator, but with cold water instead of hot. It would be faster if we heated the water, but it would destroy what makes our extract so fine.”
“I’ll bet you charge a lot for it.”
“It’s the best. Of course I charge a lot for it.”
“Do you have this process written down anywhere?”
His headache started to pound. “No. And if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you.”
“You don’t have to sound so gruff,” she said. “I was merely curious.”
