Why It Pays To Buy Your Vanilla Extract At Costco

When I worked as a kitchen manager for a local coffee shop and bakery, one of my responsibilities was the bi-weekly Sam's run. It was on these trips that I truly came to understand the beauty of buying in bulk. Of course, once I realized you could snag a large bottle of pure vanilla extract for less than ten dollars, I had to pick one up for myself as well.

Those days are long behind me, and I wince at the price of vanilla at my neighborhood grocery store now, frequently opting to substitute a splash of bourbon rather than shelling out nearly ten dollars for a dinky bottle of vanilla. And although the myth that imitation vanilla is made with beaver gland secretions has been largely debunked, I'd still prefer to use the real deal or at least a boozy substitute.

So maybe it's time to return to my bulk shopping days of yore. In fact, if you're a Costco member, vanilla is just one baking staple you should add to your shopping cart. You can pick up two sixteen-ounce bottles of pure vanilla extract at Costco for just $13.99 each. Compare that to a two-ounce bottle of McCormick pure vanilla extract from a smaller grocery store: It's over ten dollars!

There's no denying that $13.99 for sixteen ounces of vanilla sounds like a steal. Although you do have to purchase two bottles at once — at least, if you're shopping online — perhaps you have a cookie-baking friend to split the difference with. If not, vanilla extract has an extraordinarily long shelf life, so if you bake with any regularity, you likely don't have to worry about it going bad.

But what about quality? The bottle listed on Costco's website as of January 2025 is simply labeled Pure Vanilla Extract. Its ingredients list consists of imported vanilla bean extractives in water, plus alcohol (35%). Beyond that, there's not a lot of information. Compare this to Costco's two-pack of Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract. At eight ounces each, the pair comes in at about fifty dollars. That's quite an increase.

Reviews for each are mixed, with some reviewers saying the generic product tastes too much like alcohol, and others raving about the combination of affordability and quality. But the same mixed criticism has been leveled at the more expensive vanilla. Some claim the higher price isn't worth it, but one reviewer referred to it as "the Rolls Royce of spices" – high praise indeed. It's worth noting that even the $50 vanilla is a good deal if you really love Nielsen-Massey or are disappointed with the generic variety. Just one eight-ounce bottle of the same product is about $35 on Amazon, and a single eight-ounce bottle at Williams-Sonoma is about $50 all by itself.