Carolyn Kesel, 46, from Seneca Falls was arrested by Macedon police for driving while drunk on vanilla extract.
Police approached the woman after seeing her driving unsteadily in a Wal-Mart parking lot. She told police that she was lost. At that point, they suspected that she might be drunk so they administered a breathalyzer test.
The breathalyzer showed that her blood alcohol content was three times above the legal limit. Kesel defended that the only drink she had was vanilla extract. Vanilla extract contains 41 percent of alcohol, which is similar to drinking vodka or gin.
"That puts it on comparison to both vodka and gin," Ron Holdracker of the Times of Wayne County told WHAM. "We found out that things like orange extract and peppermint extract are up to 89 percent alcohol. That's 160 proof plus, that's far more than you can even find in even a liquor store."
Kesel was charged for Felony DWI and Felony Aggravated DWI with a BAC of .26 percent.
Kesel is not the first person to be charged for DWI for drinking vanilla extract. A woman from Germantown was arrested in 2010 for the same reason. Police found two bottles of vanilla extract with 35 percent alcohol in the driver's seat.
