I Tried to Clean Lemon Extract

I tried to get alcohol out of 2 oz of pure lemon extract. First, I mixed in 2 oz of water and some salt. Then, I let it chill for a while. I manually skimmed as much oil as I could. Then, I mixed in activated charcoal powder to absorb any remaining oil. I let it sit for an hour and filtered it through a coffee filter. The end result was about 40% alc, but I only had a little bit of it because it tasted so bad I almost threw up. I think the problem was that I used too much salt. Maybe I should try again without salt.