Our gift to friends and neighbors this Christmas: homemade vanilla that we bottled and labeled ourselves. This is a crazy easy but impressive handmade gift. You don’t have to do anything but pour, shake, wait, and give with glee.

I’m a vanilla freak and excited to share my brew around town. Vanilla means dessert, which means joy.

Directions: put vanilla beans in a jar (you want 5 beans per 8 ounces of vodka). I bought my vanilla beans here.

Pour in the vodka. Feel free to use the cheap stuff.

It will look like this.

Shake it once a week for at least a year. Then, it will look like this — which is 18 months later:

Decant into small bottles, available here:

Attach a fun label. I designed mine in Illustrator and printed it on sticky-backed label paper.

Give it away.

What’s the best neighbor gift you’ve ever received?