Almond extracts can apparently be based on a base oil or on alcohol - what's the functional difference?
I was making some almond biscuits (cookies) the other day, decorated with a little almond icing. The icing was just glacé icing using a little almond extract as well as water. I was supposed to mix the two liquids together, and was surprised to find they were immiscible. Checking the bottle it turned out to be based on oil, not the more common approach based on alcohol (I actually have a bottle of the latter as well). It wasn't that I'd accidentally bought a deliberately alcohol-free product. The icing turned out fine, and the leftovers were evenly almond-flavoured.
To put it another way, is there a reason to choose one base, oil or alcohol, over the other for a user who doesn't avoid traces of alcohol? What about for the manufacturer?