The pick: The Maui Cookie Lady (MCL) Tropical Extracts and cookies

Why it rates: The extracts, made with Hawaiian ingredients, are 10 times the strength of their commercially produced counterparts, so a little goes a long way. The company currently sells three flavors: Maui Mango, Lilikoi (Hawaiian passion fruit) and Hazelnut, with plans to release four more flavors during the first quarter of 2022.

The extracts come with recipe cards allowing bakers from anywhere in the world to recreate the tropical flavors of Hawaii in cookie form.

If you aren’t a baker, you can also buy MCL cookies that are wildly inventive, featuring locally sourced Hawaiian ingredients. These include ButterRum Triple Chunker (with white, dark and milk chocolate), Da Half Baked (a giant 8-ounce Chocolate Chip Cookie stuffed with Reese’s, Snickers and Oreo and a dab of malt), and just in time for the holiday season, It’s a Wonderful Whiskey Life (hand-rolled chocolate truffle with a Baileys Irish Cream center, stuffed inside a hot cocoa-inspired cookie with Jameson Irish Whiskey, Hawaiian sea salt and topped with crushed candy canes).

Founder and cookie enthusiast Mitzi Toro started MCL after a fundraiser selling cookies to benefit the team of intensive care unit nurses who cared for her terminally ill father. The success of the fundraiser encouraged her to turn her cookie passion into a business.

Info: You can order the extracts and cookies online at themauicookielady.com. Also available are 18 cookie varieties (1 to 8 ounces each), all individually wrapped and available for shipping globally. Extracts start at $14.75; cookies start at $2.50.

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