umamimart

Oh, you’re gonna love this. I was shuffling through the spicerack in my mama’s kitchen the other day, preparing to make my buttered bread pudding, when I finally found what I was looking for: vanilla extract.

Hmmm, I thought: this looks a bit outdated, no? Curiously, I examined the box. Gotta love the faux wood design and oldskool typography. There are five different fonts on here!!!

And even the yellow’s yellowing.

I turned the box around. Hold up, wait a minute. What are these numbers?

Does that say 100395? The sequence of Hurley’s lottery numbers in LOST? Not quite. I pondered this for a hot second… 100395… dot dot dot… could it be? 10/03/95. OCTOBER THIRD NINETEEN NINETY FIVE????

Seeing as we just rang in 2010, this here would be a bottle of finely aged, 15+ year vanilla extract. McCallan’s got nothin on this baby. I felt like I excavated a piece of roman rubble.

And come on, how dope is the bottle design?

Side by side comparison with a modern-day bottle of vanilla extract. The times, they are a’changin’.

*Kayoko currently lives in Cupertino, CA. Come back every week for Packaging Whore, when she highlights smart, aesthetically-pleasing design in food packaging.