Very little ethyl acetate will be formed from mixing just ethanol and acetic acid without adding a strong mineral acid catalyst or a suitable reagent system to absorb the water which is also formed in the esterification reaction.

From what I read in the posts preceding yours, the choice would be either/or, rather than both, with the greatly preferred choice being 95% ethanol. Do you have a link for the acidified ethanol cactus extraction? Is it any better than using plain ethanol?