Fairly monodisperse "dog bone" shaped gold nanorods were obtained clean and in high yield. Their average aspect ratio could be adjusted from similar to 2 to similar to 3 by altering the amount of silver nitrate present in the growth solution. They were coated with a uniform, ultrathin shell of silica and used to detect parathion pesticide on an orange peel by shell-isolated nanoparticle-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SHINERS).