 Macedon police arrested a Seneca Falls woman who was found driving erratically around a Walmart parking lot, drunk on vanilla extract. The car, with front end and undercarriage damage, was stopped and the driver, Carolyn Kesel, age 46, of Seneca Falls, NY, told police she could not find her way out of the parking lot.  text size 
 
 Felony DWI charge drinking vanilla extract 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wayne County, N.Y. - Commonly used for baking cookies or cake, Macedon Police arrested and charged a Seneca Falls woman for Felony DWI after she drank two hand sized bottles of pure vanilla extract. Kesel was arraigned in Macedon Town Court and remanded to the Wayne County Jail on $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond. Carolyn Kesel, 46, had consumed two hand-sized bottles of pure vanilla extract last Monday, according to a report from WHAM. Our news partner Ron Holdracker with the Times of Wayne County said, "That puts it on comparison to both vodka and gin. "If they smell like peppermint or they smell like vanilla, it could be that they're masking alcohol and that they're professional alcoholics," said Holdracker. "We found out that things like orange extract and peppermint extract are up to 89 percent alcohol. Holdracker said the Wayne County probation office is becoming aware of the issue, and that people may be hiding their alcohol use with flavored extracts.
– Driving drunk is one thing. Doing it on two bottles of vanilla extract is at least sweeter, if just as dangerous. Carolyn Kesel, 46, was pulled over for driving erratically around a Walmart parking lot in Macedon, NY, last week, and told police she had downed two bottles of extract, the Post-Standard reports. She came up .26% on a Breathalyzer test. Seem unlikely? Well, police say vanilla extract has an alcohol level of 41%. "That puts it on comparison to both vodka and gin," journalist Ron Holdracker tells WHAM. "We found out that things like orange extract and peppermint extract are up to 89% alcohol. That's 160 proof plus, that's far more than you can even find in even a liquor store." County officials are learning that people (alcoholics in particular) also drink flavored extracts to mask alcohol consumption, adds Holdracker. And the Wayne County Times notes that underage kids are known to drink extracts to get high. "I didn't know that," says a county correctional officer of extracts' alcohol level. "This blows me away. How can they sell that stuff in grocery stores." Many shops already card people who purchase "buzzy" products like spray paints, cough syrup, computer keyboard duster spray, and sometimes spice extracts. As for Kesel—who has a prior DUI—she was arraigned and remanded to jail on a $20,000 bond or $10,000 cash.