For those with MC, I would recommend trying Grant's prune coals. I tried the process minus the dustinga dn they are quite flavorful. I will say this however, when written it says that the solution boils violently after adding the baking soda......they are not kidding. Oy! That was a few pans of boiled water for wash up. :-) I didn't do the spiced ash as I was missing a couple components. I tried altering the color using blue corn water (which looks great but ratio is too low for the recipe).
Here's an example of what it looked like after vacuum.
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