Eating products with alcohol based flavours

Q: I recently contacted a company called Arnott's to find out whether one of their chocolate filling biscuit products, 'TimTam' was halaal and this was their response:

"Small amounts of alcohol based flavours (like vanilla essence) are added to sweet biscuits. We know alcohol is sensitive to heat and we believe the alcohol is evaporated during baking, but there is a slight possibility that trace amounts could still be present in the finished product."

Is this biscuit halaal?

A: We will not say that it is haraam, but at the level of taqwa if someone refrains it is better.

And Allah Ta'ala (الله تعالى) knows best.


Answered by:

Mufti Ebrahim Salejee (Isipingo Beach)