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Lemon and Basil and Garlic, Oh My! Discovering Flavored Olive Oils with Liz Tagami
Episode 7816th June 2025 • Sip with Nikki • Nikki Lamberti
00:00:00 00:52:39

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I'm thrilled to welcome back Liz Tagami of American Olive Farmer and Lucero Oil! If you haven't listened to Episode 62, "Olive Oil Deep Dive" yet, check that one out to learn more about the beautiful oils Liz and Donald are creating in Corning, CA.

They have been sold out of their flavored olive oils for some time, but they are back and I finally got to taste them with Liz!

You'll hear:

  • The unique processes behind American Olive Farmer's flavored oils and the importance of using real, high-quality ingredients in flavored oils to ensure authentic taste and aroma
  • The fascinating history of balsamic vinegar and its connection to Roman soldiers
  • We taste 3 exciting oils (Lemon, Basil and Roasted Garlic) and 2 gorgeous vinegars and talk about recipes and ways to enjoys these beautiful enhancements
  • Liz shares about the olive growing season and the various challenges that small producers face, including labor shortages and crop variances

You can get a trio of all 3 delicious flavored oils and vinegars from from American Olive Farmer. Use code SipWithNikki for $10 off your order! Be sure to sign up for their fantastic newsletter chock full of recipes and inspiration!

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Transcripts

Liz:

Sequoia elementary school in:

Nikki:

Positive thing.

Liz:

It is okay, because somebody's mom made garlic bread and I'd never had it before, and I thought it was amazing because it is.

Nikki:

Hello and welcome back to Sip with Nikki. I'm Nikki Lamberti here in Sonoma County, California, and once again thrilled to have you as a listener, whether you're first time or a long time.

So happy that you have joined our SIP community, and I cannot wait for you to hear what I've got in store this week.

Now, if you haven't already listened to the re release of our olive oil Deep Dive with Liz Tagami, I'm going to encourage you to go back to that just a couple months ago this year, which was actually a re release release of two different episodes last year, olive oil 101 and olive oil 102. Because Liz has a lot to teach us.

She and her husband Donald, own American Olive Farmer and also the Lucero olive oil brand, and they're up in Corning, California, which is just a couple hours north of me here in Northern California. And if those names sound familiar, you've probably heard that American Olive Farmer is one of the sponsors of the podcast.

And I shout out how much I love their products in some weekly ads.

So you can imagine if I love them as much as I do that I was really excited when Liz let me know that something that they have not had in their portfolio for quite some time, it's been sold out, was back again and I had never tasted it. And that is their flavored olive oils and also two of their beautiful balsamic vinegars that they import from Modena and in Italy.

So what you'll hear today is me tasting for the very first time their lemon and basil and garlic olive oils. Three different oils which were all new to me.

But more importantly, Liz catches us up onto the process of how these are made and how hers are very different than other flavored oils that are out there on the market that have other ingredients and additives and flavorings. Whereas these are made with literally just the olives and the fresh ingredient of either lemon or basil or garlic.

Can't wait for you to sip with us in this week's extra special, Sip Spotlight. Sip Spotlight. So here we go with Liz Tagami and what's new at American Olive Farmer.

Thank you for making time to hop on another recording with me and talk about these gorgeous new flavored oils and two vinegars that arrived on my doorstep thank you very much.

Liz:

It's my pleasure to be here.

Nikki:

I'm curious in the.

In the olive growing season and I've been seeing some fun updates in your newsletters, all the things that are going on right now in the world of olive oil. What did your day look like up until you sat down here with me today?

Liz:

It's a beautiful, wonderful day. I always start out with a walk through the surrounding orchards.

And although we don't have the olive crop right outside of my door, we do have other permanent crops. So I walk past the 8,000 almond trees across the road and prune trees. And so I'm looking at how the crop is sizing.

They come into bloom and start setting fruit earlier than olives. And there are two other indicators. I have a neighbor with a wild olive tree. I walk past and I have two trees out by my gate.

So I'm also looking at how those things are blooming.

Nikki:

Are they like little barometers that are a little bit.

Liz:

They really are because they really are. Because I don't have to get in a car and check on a crop a mile and a half away.

We are now in a period of fruit set where some of the varieties have a heavy crop load this year and a few of them will were very sadly lacking. Okay.

And it is just so much the particular circumstance, whether it's the microclimate or those trees, because they're alternate bearing table olives are in our county based on how the trees are shaped. They're tall trees where you must use orchard ladders. It's all hand harvest and that means migrant farm labor.

So the nail biter for everyone right now is, oh, how will the labor situation, which has always been tight, how will you pick those olives? Our world going to be like in September. So yes, one of the two olive table olive crops is light. The other one is super abundant.

So it could just be asking some people to try something different. And I'm not the cannery. The olive cannery takes thousands of tons of olives and I take hundreds of pounds of olives. A big difference.

So I'm going to get in there early and make sure my customers get the olives they need. And the good news is with a smaller crop, the size is usually bigger. The trees are more generous. There is something that we call June drop.

And I don't know if grape growers say that, but after flowering and the olives start to form and size in June, the trees decide if they can handle that crop load and they'll drop a Certain amount. So no one does a tonnage forecast really until July, and that's when the first forecast comes in.

And the weather in July and August is the sizing period. That's when we make sure that they're getting enough water.

For table olives, just keep the water on them, keep sizing and get them in early September. For oil olives, we're relying on fairly moderate temperatures on a relative basis. Right. Because it's still a desert plant.

But if it gets too hot, the olives will color, but they won't produce as much oil. So you could, year over year, have the exact same tonnage but not enjoy the same yield. Varies by time of harvest, later or early.

And the variety, some olive varieties are just very stingy, but they're good for table olives.

Nikki:

To go back to your question about the vineyard and you talked about the June drop, I think the biggest difference is it sounds like your olive trees are dropping olives on their own.

Liz:

Yes. In the vineyard, they self edit, we edit.

Nikki:

So the vineyard manager, the vintner, the winery team, they go out and thin fruit and drop it on purpose. But that has to be encouraged. And you have to actually do that. And that's because more isn't always better and you don't want all of the competition.

So we will drop fruit or thin fruit out, but the human has to do that in wine. So I think that's interesting concept, but a different execution. Oh, my gosh.

I have so many questions about the beautiful flavored oils that we're gonna taste today. And the vinegars, again, I can't reiterate enough.

If you are listening to this episode and you have not listened to last year's Olive Oil 101, 102, or the RE release where I gave you the Cliff Notes from both of them, the encore presentation earlier this year, I really do encourage listeners to go back, pause this. We'll be here and listen to that.

First to get the foundation not only of who Liz and Donald are an American olive farmer, and the history with Lucero, but then also how they are growing and producing these beautiful oils like Arbakina and ascolano and the Oleo Novello, which I've talked, are available at different times of the year, but since you and I have been working together, I think you have not had these for quite some time. So this is very exciting that we're back in stock. So I would love to know, why are they hard to keep?

And also, of course, the process to make them what they are.

Liz:

Thank you for the opportunity to share this real special category.

And when we were chatting earlier about this and thinking about how to do the tasting, it occurred to me that in all of my professional tasting, whether it's taste panels or judging or even master classes, we don't taste flavored oils. And that's because they're not considered extra virgin. Strictly speaking, based on European regulations and even California regulations.

If you add anything besides olives when you're crushing them, you have, and I'm using air quotes here, you've adulterated the batch, Right. So if you start adding lemons, then it's not extra virgin. It's virgin olive oil with lemons.

Or as I say in the ingredient statement, the ingredients are extra virgin olive oil. Cause there's nothing else there but, right. The olives and then the other fruit.

So in tasting this with you, we're going to use standard tasting glasses and we'll talk about aroma, flavor, and finish as we have in the past. But as I was setting this up, it gave me pause because this is a first. And I'd like to spend a minute and talk about why it's controversial.

Nikki:

Yeah.

Liz:

Why It's a polarizing subject, really. When we talk about olives having a relatively low yield, why would you then do something that limits your flexibility later? Right.

As a staple in the pantry? If you go back to olive growing areas in Europe, why in the world would you do anything but make sure you had your basics right?

If you are in an abundant place like Sicily that has amazing citrus, the idea of at the very end of the season, you're getting ready to close down the mill and you've got some very ripe olives.

Someone in the midst of time said, hey, you know what if we throw some lemons in or some local unique citrus and co mill them because all of the citrus fruits have a little bit of oil in their skin. The juice doesn't matter, the pith doesn't matter.

But expressing that oil in the zest, which is very little oil, but it's enough to add a flavored aroma to the resulting oil. And word that is used is agrumato. Agru mato is olive oil in the style. Agroma means citrus. Right. So it's just an agramato. Oil isn't a flavored oil.

It's a flavored citrus oil, particularly. It has become more popular. Then let's turn to the United States. What do we do here? Culturally, we like things quick and easy.

Nikki:

We process and create artificial versions of.

Liz:

All of the things that exist in nature that anyone.

There's a lot of people who are your listeners, I'm sure, who are in the food industry and you've seen something called warmth with other natural flavor. So there's a range with other natural flavor.

Nikki:

Why?

Liz:

And so if you're a food technologist or in quality assurance or in product development, a lot of times the answer is, oh, you know what? We need some warmth, we need some caramel, we need some vanilla, we need something else, because real vanilla is too expensive.

So let's get some warmth in there. And that's all throughout commercial food production.

So in, in the United States of America, you see a range from people doing an Agramato style citrus or the South American or Northern Italian kind of herbs, all the way to warmth all the way to. I don't know what this is, but it's supposed to be lemon or there's.

Nikki:

97 ingredients in it.

Liz:

To me, sadly or sadly, you walk into some places and they have butter flavor. And if your extra virgin olive oil tastes like butter, it's got a lactic issue. And there is, it's, it's kind of, it's a defect.

Nikki:

Save that for your chardonnay, Linda something, right?

Liz:

And so I will have patrons on the phone, we'll be chatting about what we like, how we cook, what we enjoy, and from time to time they'll say, I really don't like flavored oil. Probably because they walked into a mall somewhere and. And someone poured a fakey type real lemon flavor.

Nikki:

L, E, M, Y, N Lemon.

Liz:

Yeah, something. So what we are tasting today is high end.

And I guess I want to backtrack one more time in terms of why I didn't have these and what makes them unique. When I was operating production at Lucero, we in fact had 100% agramato oils.

And there was a legacy from before I got there of some with other natural flavoring. And one of my accomplishments is I located a global fragrance and flavoring company that had a patent on chirally correct natural flavors.

And of all of the natural flavors offered out there, these seemed the most real in the mouth. Okay, so was it real lemon? Yeah, but they like, it still comes in a bottle. Right?

We would purchase this stuff for several of the items in the collection. Why don't I do that today? I really feel strongly about only using real product, number one.

But number two, even if I wanted to, the minimum order quantities are quite high and the shelf life is quite short. So if you're looking to even do that, you're talking about massive scale of production. Yeah, right. It's just not somebody who's an artisan producer.

Nikki:

And you are in fact the epitome of the artisan producer.

Liz:

I'm one of several, probably over a thousand small operators in the state of California.

And the reason I didn't have flavored oil is if you think about a limited crop and the timing and having to race against rain in California to have mill time available, fruit and everything else to get a flavored oil done. There's no bottomless tank where I operate. So I had to make some choices and I chose to not compromise and get back in stock.

When I got in stock, I also had the complication of having my glass maker discontinued the size.

So there was an opportunity to just roll out everything at one time, drop a season, come back and say we're very proud of the collection, which is a lemon, an assorted lemon, not just one variety, a Genovese basil, which is the same variety that's used in making pesto. It's very common in the greengrocers.

And then rather than just a garlic, this garlic has been roasted and then put into the mill and it's all using late harvest fruit instead at the end of the season. Because you really don't want to mill garlic and then do a regular batch, which is the last thing that is done. So there it is.

Nikki:

Not only did you answer my question, but I think it really helps people understand the limited nature of what these are, how special they are. And yeah, just even you probably saw me roll my eyes when you talked about your glass issues.

Cause we're dealing with some similar things in getting ready to bottle our next vintage of wine. So, yeah, all those things lead you to have to make some decisions. I'm thrilled that we have these. And let's taste some lemon to start.

I'm so excited. Tell me what to do.

Liz:

All right. Well, as we chat, I my glass in my left hand to just stay warm.

And I'll share with you that when we first offered an Agramato style Lemon, it was 100% Meyer. Meyer Lemon has just an incredible quality about it. And it's a hybrid fruit that was Eureka lemons and tangerine.

And so if there's like a little oranginess to it, it was a man named Meyer who did it in Southern California. I'm just taking, if I'm remembering my story correctly, I don't know the origin of Meyer lemons.

Nikki:

I just love them and I love how intense and floral and interesting they are.

Liz:

And if you hold a Meyer lemon and compare it to another kind of lemon, you'll notice that it's got an extremely thin skin. I use the word stingy. We're talking about some olive varieties. This is the stingiest lemon in terms of what you get out of it.

The number of pounds of Meyer lemons that you'd have to do a batch is insane. We began experimenting, and I have to credit the master Miller, Lucero, for doing this.

He started looking at the bill of materials, says, this is crazy. Tagami, how many lemons we're putting in this. What if we did part? What if we just switched to Eureka? And I said, no way. We're not doing that.

Different flavor profile. Don't want to do it.

uitability and established in:

And it wasn't gonna be $80 a bottle or something stupid, which is just as important.

Nikki:

You can make all these decisions of the ideal flavor profile. I think same for a wine too. And then in the end, if your cost to produce it is not accessible for most people, it's not a win.

Liz:

Yeah, it becomes a. It's a vanity project at that point.

Nikki:

And I'll say another term, Hashtag vanity project. I just smelled it.

Liz:

I had to smell it. I know I did. And I joined you.

Nikki:

I have not tasted these ever. This is.

Liz:

Have you not?

Nikki:

Okay, listener, you're hearing this live for the first time.

Liz:

So I've not done strapaggia, I don't think, with a lemon, but let's see what it is.

Nikki:

Would you not do it?

Liz:

Well, I don't know that. Again, this isn't a competition oil. I've only done it for pleasure. I don't know how much it's going to catch your throat.

For instance, you would not do strapaggio with vinegar, or you wouldn't stop coughing. Right.

Nikki:

You would die.

Liz:

But for the lime, it may have a little of that. So let's just. Let's do a light strip on Joe, okay? Oh, yeah, not so bad. I'm trying to keep my mic away so I don't slurp too loudly.

Nikki:

Oh, we can slurp. I just. I just had this vision of myself, like, melting in my chair and slithering.

Liz:

Off the chair, so you'll notice that the olive really recedes. In this, it's not fruit forward. What's really forward here is the lemon, the olive, but it's not a flavorless fat either. It just melds really nicely.

And the reason for that is that it is a late harvester olive.

Typically what we can get when these are co milled and we can in January is a very ripe fruit and that's they're going to be more buttery, much more mild, delicate and the intensity is way down. So I still have the flavor in my mouth. The finish is very long because of that zest you were talking about.

Nikki:

Just the zest which holds the oil that gives the aromatics. There's no lemon juice or pulp or flesh of the lemon in here. It's just from the zest.

Liz:

And maybe some flavor comes from that. But you remember from Olive101 that after the fruit is crushed and separated in a decanter, right.

A high speed salad spinner that goes at 3,000 rpm, the flesh and water are separated and in this case the juice would as well. What our experience is that something about the. You're adding a lot of extra liquid with the lemon juice, right. That is going to reduce some yields.

You're not going to get as much oil out of the olive itself, but because you crushed the outside so thoroughly and mixed it in, the oils coalesce in the malaxer. That's all you need. And recall, I don't have my own mill anymore. I rely on friends.

Ideally I would have a couple of prep cooks there cutting lemons, juicing them to make lemon curd afterwards and then.

Nikki:

Just use everything, get everything.

Liz:

You can use everything because otherwise, right. And they just throwing the shell of the lemon in. But as it is, the entire uncut lemon is thrown in and the hammer mill takes care of everything.

Because of the amount of Meyer in here, you get a little bit of the oranginess, a little bit. And not just straight lemon. And classically it's enjoyed on fish. It's wonderful on asparagus that I am.

Nikki:

Having for dinner tonight the beautiful copper river salmon from my friend Sina, the Alaskan salmon. And I think I'm just gonna drizzle it with this and just do it simple.

Liz:

It works so well.

Nikki:

Beautiful fish, beautiful oil and just let it shine. Yeah.

Liz:

Oh, our friends have popularized something that olive people have been doing for decades, which is enjoying oil on ice cream. Oh. And so one of my favorites, lemon olive oil on vanilla ice cream is outstanding. But not just ice cream.

I had yogurt this morning a really nice Greek yogurt with some very robust honey and the lemon olive oil, some seeds and nuts. And it was just really wonderful because it just emulsifies that those two oils, the dairy fat and the other one. Or cottage cheese or.

You know, think about some of these other ways you might use it. Popular on a dessert. You have a pound cake and just drizzle a little bit on that.

Nikki:

Oh, my gosh. Yes.

Liz:

You just get a little flavor. Whip it into whipped cream so, you know, you can have fun with it.

It is the single most popular flavored oil because of its versatility, both with sweet and savory applications.

Nikki:

What about olive oil cake? Would you make, like, your beautiful recipes that you've shared for olive oil cake and then substitute regular oil with lemon?

Liz:

You could. It'd be expensive, but it's been done.

Nikki:

Maybe on the top.

Liz:

That may be more responsible.

Nikki:

I love that.

Liz:

I never want to say.

Nikki:

I never said I was responsible. Or fruit loaf.

Liz:

Well. And again, it kind of goes.

Okay, this is a good transition to the basil, because I will now confess one of the things that I do and that is that I liberally pour the basil over popcorn. Yes. And use Parmesan. Because a giant. Like an unspeakably large bowl of freshly.

Nikki:

Popped has to be unspeakably large. That's how you fit popcorn. When you're gonna make popcorn, it has.

Liz:

To fit, like with your arms in ballet, first position, like holding the bowl and just. Yeah, it is. That is. That's one of my few vices that I'll confess. I love a big bowl of popcorn.

Nikki:

Me, too. Me, too.

Liz:

Especially on a Friday afternoon, now that I think about it. You're having your salmon. I'm gonna go. Dawn's got some very nice Reggiano in the fridge door. I might do something with that. Of course.

Nikki:

Your chef husband has that. Of course.

Liz:

Thoughts to share before we.

Nikki:

And you might come back to this. But an obvious use of the lemon oil, I think would be in a salad dressing, like a vinaigrette.

We're going to come back to that when we talk about vinegar.

Liz:

You know, I've poured a finger of. In my special glass of the.

Nikki:

This is so beautiful. Rosato.

Liz:

We say rosato in Italian, and the grape variety is Pinot Noir or as they say in Italy, Pinot Nero.

Nikki:

I love this so much.

Liz:

So now because you're. You're. You're a grapey person. Color. There's a little bit of tawniness to it. Pink next to. To a regular. So what do you Get.

Nikki:

Ooh. I just, I'm smelling it out of a little, almost like a cordial glass and I'm swirling it and smelling it like a wine because it's like wine's cousin.

Ooh. I just love the acidity of vinegar. Right. It makes my mouth water when I smell it. But I smell fruit. I smell.

It's a fruity, pretty vinegar that I can't wait to put. Put in my mouth just from. I don't know how else to describe it.

Liz:

Let's just taste it and don't strapaggio because you start coughing.

Nikki:

Oh, my gosh. It's almost. There's some sweetness in there, is there? A little bit of sweetness?

Liz:

Oh, there is.

Nikki:

Yeah, there is.

Liz:

There is sweetness. The, the grams per serving. 10 grams per. You know, you think about most of the rose vinegars on the market are made with Trebbiano.

Nikki:

Yeah.

Liz:

And so green skinned olive too. So they must be adding something else to get a rose color.

But Pinot Noir is a very interesting grape and so more interesting grapes will make more interesting vinegar.

Nikki:

And wine usually. Yeah.

Liz:

And wine usually. One of the conversations I have very frequently with people when we talk about balsamic vinegar, this is a specialty. Right.

It's not thick, it's not viscous. It's very light. Yes. And clean. This is the Sauvignon Blanc, maybe the Sancerre of vinegars. So really nice for summertime.

And I would say that when people ask the age of a vinegar, it's very much being caught up in American marketing. In Italy, they do not put 18 year vinegar on the big label in a watermark or 25 year.

They will talk about grades, but it has to be 6% acidity if it is a traditional balsamic vinegar. And when people start talking about age, I remind them a boring young vinegar aged for 10 years will be a boring old vinegar.

Nikki:

Good to know.

Liz:

So you start off with interesting grapes, well prepared, and then aging, of course, will add complexity. But any kind of harmony or interest is going to come from getting good grapes, getting good juice to begin with.

So much what you talk about every day as you've enjoyed this. One of my favorite pairings is to put this with the lemon. It is a super popular summertime vinaigrette. Spring and summer.

Nikki:

Would you do like a one to one ratio of the oil to vinegar?

Liz:

Traditionally, a vinaigrette is 3 to 1 oil, 3 oil, 1 vinegar. But what the style is today, and we've adopted it really is 2 to 1. One part vinegar, two parts oil.

Nikki:

So that's what you want me to do is two vinegar to one oil opposite. Okay. All right, I think I've got that.

Liz:

But, you know, do it to your own taste. Right, okay.

Nikki:

Oh, my gosh. That vinegar is so interesting. All right. Did you give it a swirl, just combine it a little bit?

Liz:

Yeah, I did. Yeah. Right. You can't see her face.

Nikki:

Wine, like, bring me to tears and give me goosebumps. I don't know that I've ever had that reaction with oil and vinegar and like, a. Basically a salad dressing that we just made.

But it's giving me a moment. It's. Wow.

Liz:

Donald has a recipe that he developed that uses these two on a grilled fish, and I think he might have added some mustard and stuff to it. I'd have to go look, but it really worked well.

Nikki:

It's like when we talk about, like, salt, fat, acid, heat, and, you know how we want to check all the boxes with things. We don't really have heat here, but we definitely have acid, and we definitely have some sweetness.

And it's just every taste bud in my mouth when I take a sip of this combination is firing on all cylinders. Even though it's light and fresh, there are so many layers of flavors that are happening right now, and it is amazing. Wow. Oh, my gosh. Okay.

Thank you for that. All right, now I might have to put that on my fish.

Liz:

And again, that's why these are so popular.

Nikki:

When we're done recording, I'm going to come back and play with these, and I'm interested to then try, like, a 1 to 1 or a 2 to 1 with oil to vinegar. But I love the little bit more of the vinegar with the oil in the background. That was fantastic. Oh, my God.

Okay, so we have fresh Genovese basil olive oil. Tell me about this.

Liz:

There are many kinds of basil in the market, but the one you see most frequently is known in marketing as the Genovese basil. And it is the flavor of pesto.

Nikki:

One of my favorite flavors on the planet. Oh, my gosh. It smells like I just picked this out of my garden.

Liz:

It doesn't. It. It's like you. You just crushed it between your fingers, and I'm gonna take a little taste. It's nice to do it this way, Stone.

Nikki:

It's almost like I'm looking for the basil leaves floating in here. That's how present it is and how true and authentically basil. Basil it is. I don't know even know how else to say it.

So tell me how we Talked about how from the lemons, you're extracting it from the zest, which has some oil. What is the process of getting this much fresh basil into here?

Liz:

It's just volume.

Nikki:

Yeah.

Liz:

It has to be fresh. And reason why these oils are more expensive is that it takes a lot to do that extraction.

And I would say, in terms of a shortcut, this really is a condiment. Right. This is something that.

Nikki:

A little bit drizzling on my margherita pizza.

Liz:

A little bit of a.

Nikki:

Let's get another layer of basil on there.

Liz:

And so maybe you add a chiffonade of basil.

But then if you wanted a little bit something else to your point, a couple of dots on a soup so you get that green color and let a little gem of flavor there.

Nikki:

Oh, my gosh. That just tastes like.

I think basil is nostalgic for me because my parents always grew it just in pots in New Jersey and we made pesto and we love margherita pizza. So between that and then recent trips to Italy, when I taste this, it's very nostalgic and comforting.

Liz:

Really nice.

Nikki:

Yeah.

Liz:

The third oil we're going to taste today is the garlic, the roasted garlic. And I did a little pre taste before, and I thought, oh, this is okay. Yes, it's roasted garlic.

And then I started dipping bread in it and I said, it's garlic bread. I mean, Donald laughed.

Nikki:

He goes, well, yeah, that's how you make garlic bread. Slow roasted garlic bread.

Liz:

It is a convenience item. It's where the people who love garlic and use a lot of garlic, they.

Nikki:

I'm raising my hand to both of those things. That's me. That's me. Should I taste it in the glass first?

Liz:

Yeah, you go ahead and do that. And then I'm going to go right for the bread because I'm hungry.

Nikki:

Last time we did this, we had pizza. That was so good.

Liz:

Sequoia elementary school in:

Nikki:

Is that your head positive thing?

Liz:

It is.

Nikki:

Okay.

Liz:

Because somebody's mom made garlic bread and I'd never had it before and I thought it was amazing because it is.

Nikki:

Ooh, that smells amazing. We often roast garlic. We have the little ceramic roaster.

And on our pizza nights that we do every couple of weeks in the wood fire pizza oven, we roast the garlic in that wood oven, and it's amazing. And then we repurpose it for days.

Liz:

Some wonderful versions of garlic oil out in the market. Of course, there Are the people who have the flavored stuff, which is not so great. But you could do this with raw. Some people do a double garlic.

It's stronger. I don't think we have to go overboard. I think this is just a really nice balance. And the roasting of it just lets the garlic. It reduces the. I'll say.

Garlic can be very astringent or acrid, which I find unpleasant. Raw garlic, typically. Yeah, I know.

Nikki:

It's a turn off to some people.

Liz:

Yeah.

Nikki:

I could bite into garlic like an apple and be happy.

Liz:

Oh, really? You're a Kinrose fan?

Nikki:

That's me. Stinking Rose. Well, I hope listener. Stinking Rose is a garlic forward restaurant in San Francisco. Here's where my mind is already going with these.

On said pizza nights that I mentioned, where we usually have friends over. And one of these days it's gonna be you and Donald.

I make a big charcuterie board with all different things, but I always have a little dipping bowl of my American olive farmer. Usually arbequina or ascolano and just some either flatbread or breadsticks or bread.

I can't wait to do my next board where I have these three each in little dipping containers. And that's part of the charcuterie spread. And people can taste the difference in them.

Liz:

That's very cool.

Nikki:

I can't wait. I'm taking another bite.

Liz:

I think people like to explore. I went ahead and I created a trio. 15% off for buying the three assorted packs.

Nikki:

Oh, people can pick one of these and buy them. You have to buy the trio. That's my.

Liz:

Yes.

Nikki:

They can buy just one as a single or a trio of the same. Three bottles of the same. I saw you have on your website as well.

But I'm like, why would you not try all three and then maybe buy more of your favorite after that? Yeah.

Liz:

Which then are on subscriptions. So you get a 15% discount on a trio of lemon and then an additional discount for like a quarterly subscription.

And that's better for the environment and all of us. You'll save money on shipping and handling. I save money on shipping and handling.

I'm trying to encourage more buying bundles, two or three at a time because it's just enough and they don't need to go crazy and buy too many at one time.

Nikki:

These aren't huge bottles. These are 250 mil. So. So, yeah, I think that's very reasonable. And I would definitely encourage people to buy the trio for sure.

Just to do what we're doing to Taste them all and then think about all the different ways to apply them. I wanna remind people to go to your website, American Olive Farmer.

Not only to purchase and do the subscription and all of those things, but to look at the recipe section. Cause I'm gonna guess there's a few. Are there some recipes in there that you and Donald have created that call for these specifically?

Liz:

Yes, yes.

Nikki:

So you don't have to create it person. They've already done it for you. Just find the recipes on their website because they're amazing.

Speaking from experience, I've cooked multiple recipes from your website. Okay. Wow. I love that so much that's going on. Pizza, too. We have one more vinegar. First of all, your beautiful name, Tagame is at the top.

And then it says balsamic vinegar. Aceto balsamico.

Liz:

Oh, aceto balsamico. Ah, bene. This is the star of the show. I am so proud of this vinegar. I mentioned before that in Italy, they talk about grades.

This is an affinato grade. And most vinegars that are available commercially in California or I guess the United States, are not palatable to Americans.

They're 6% acidity, which is the Modenese standard. But people want them sweeter.

So what evolved is the major importer distributors started working with the larger producers in Modena to do a 4% acidity to meet the American palate, shall we say. Right.

Nikki:

So you had to dumb it down for us, for the Americans.

Liz:

Well, every market being in the confection business or anything else, you know, let's consider it Sweden, Mexico or England versus California, I mean, they're all different. Right. It's. So there's. So there was this sensibility that the castile really had to be 4%.

Nikki:

Okay.

Liz:

As I worked with the makers and tasted so many formulas, so many things you could do. Grape varieties, how they age it, how they cook it down. The idea with a vinegar is that it's a live product. The acetobacter is a bacteria.

You would never want it in your.

Nikki:

Winery because it would ruin dirty word in the winery. Yep. Right.

Liz:

But in a vinegar maker's place. And again, this isn't an Italian product. Italian. Say this is not Italian. It's modanese.

The regional area of Italy, Modena, just east of the Po River Valley, where they do this. It has to be 6% or it's not really considered vinegar. So it's like, how do you get around that? What you do is you do a higher percentage of grape.

Must you make it sweeter? Because you know you can in Terms of cost and everything else. Think about it. Balsamic vinegar is grape must. And vinegar, wine vinegar.

If you have something for $3 on the bottom shelf of a grocery store, that's going to be a higher percentage of vinegar and a lower percentage of grape must. Probably grape must that was reduced in some sort of jacketed, covered steam kettle, which does a very rapid, clean reduction.

But you lose all of the volatile aromas. Sure. So imagine interesting grapes like Sangiovese, my favorite. I have to sing for this grape.

And Trebbiano, which is the one that people really know about. And oh, my goodness, why am I forgetting the other one? Lambrusco, Lambrusco, ccc, Certo. And so this, which is a beautiful, flavorful, great.

Those are the three most common ones.

If you're getting your grapes from Modena, you could be a Modanese vinegar maker and source your grapes from southern Italy or from Greece or from North. It's. How do you manage your costs? If some buyer is forcing you to value engineer, you just get your produce elsewhere.

Nikki:

So we start off value engineer, another buzzword, because that happens with wine, too. You talk about the vinegar on the bottom shelf. The wine is on the bottom of the shelf. And $4 a bottle. For a measurable reason.

Liz:

For measurable reasons. And so they start off with good grapes, good juice, and then to reduce them over open flame so that the caramelization happens naturally.

No caramel coloring is in these because you don't need it. You have. If you do it in a steam jacket thing where there's no flavor, people have to add caramel flavor and caramel color to make up for that.

Don't need to do that for this.

Nikki:

Good to know.

Liz:

Then after that, then they age it in Slavonian oak, and aging is a couple of years. This isn't 25 years, but it doesn't need to be because what you get is the most outstanding balance of acid and sugar. The complexity, digestive.

I'm going to go ahead and let you taste it and you tell me.

Nikki:

And while I'm pouring it for our listeners, you are not making these. You are importing these from.

Liz:

I'm the negotiate.

Nikki:

You're the negotiate, yes. Which is different than the olive oil. Oh, my God. It looks like I'm pouring the shiniest chocolate syrup.

Liz:

It's very completely different texture. Look at the legs on it.

Nikki:

Give it a little like a wine almost. Yeah.

Liz:

See that?

Nikki:

See? Good thing I'm tasting it from a stem. I can swirl and. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. First of all, totally different smell risotto. So this is.

I always talk about the balsamic or just really good vinegar is like the epitome of umami that we talk about. When you smell the savoriness of it, I get sweetness on the finish.

Liz:

You would.

ct of closing the business in:

And when I reopened, I had people calling and saying how much they had hoarded and that they were down to their last bottle and nobody in the house knew where it was because that was for them only. And just cute things like that. It is being able to offer this very special condiment. The sizes and prices are really very reasonable.

Nikki:

Yeah.

Liz:

Because I don't have it bottled in Italy in the 100ml consortio bottle authentically. Right. To be able to call it true balsamic vinegar. It comes in that little funny round bottle with the square bottom, right?

Nikki:

Yep, yep.

Liz:

But it's certified by the consortio and it's the real thing. And it just comes over bulk. And we bottle it here.

Nikki:

Bottle it here.

Liz:

There's something that's this special.

Nikki:

It's really special. I've taken three sips while you were talking. The viscosity, it's like silk across my palate. It's got weight to it, but not overpowering.

And again, how many people are gonna sit and drink it out of essentially a wine glass? Which is what I'm trying to do.

Liz:

Well, actually, a lot of people do. For some people, it is a digestif for them over a little bit of cheese over a fresh strawberry.

Nikki:

What cheese? Give me a top one or two that you would do it over.

Liz:

I have to say, a pinnacle of to Parma was I was there for the food show and we dined just outside of the trade show venue. And they brought a flight of cheeses, all Parmigiano, Reggiano, different ages. And they paired. And they paired them with balsamic vinegars to match.

Yes. And at the very end, they had this stuff that was. I think they had an eyedropper. It was so thick on this aged. Nutty. Amazing.

But, yeah, people, you know, for a charcuterie board that, you know, that you.

Nikki:

Could add to that for sure, the more aged it is, the thicker it gets.

Liz:

That will happen because of the reduction and I think too, the ratio of grape must and grape must. For those who might not know who the non winemakers there, it's the skin, the seeds the stem, everything goes in.

When it gets cooked down, it's all crushed together and then strained and then reduced. That grape must has all of that complexity in it. But if you have a higher percentage of grape must, it will be sweeter.

And if you look on the back, isn't it 12 grams of sugar per tablespoon?

Nikki:

Yes.

Liz:

The sweetness and the thick viscosity, it is a 6% acid to hold to the Modanese standard. And I'm very proud of that. I'm looking at. I'm looking at vinegars across California and I see three and a half, four percent. Just.

Just very low grams of sugar. And it's not saying that it's bad. Just think of a plain wine vinegar. It's hardly sweet at all. Right?

Nikki:

Yeah, yeah. That's what's so striking about this for me. I love your descriptors on the back of the bottle. So plummy, honeyed, luscious and exceptional.

That is a description for sure. I agree with I, all of it. But plummy is a nod to sweetness, for sure.

And then it says appreciate as a restorative before meal aperitif, an after dinner digestif, or as a special dressing. I would do all three of those things with this. Just drink it like this.

Liz:

Our balsamic butter chicken is, I think, one of the most popular things we do. We did a balsamic butter pork loin once.

Nikki:

All right, people go to the website. Balsamic butter chicken. Hey, here's my last question. Balsamic.

I think I know the answer, but I think a lot of people have never really thought about it. Why is it called balsamic? What's the connection?

Liz:

It was considered really, what was a restorative. How many people listening saw the HBO series Rome? There is an episode, he's racing off to war and he grabs his vinegar bag.

What Roman soldiers had as part of their kit was a little bag that had vinegar in it, which they added to the water to make it drinkable.

Nikki:

Ah, okay.

Liz:

And Julius Caesar had an assistant, and his name was the same word. It was so romantic when I found this out. Pascha, his manservant was Pascha. That drink is called posca.

Nikki:

Okay.

Liz:

And people in medieval times or ancient Roman times would have this reduced grape vinegar thing for preservative to help the water be drinkable, considered somewhat medicinal, or like a balm. Balsamic.

Nikki:

So that's where that term comes from, relating to being like a balm.

Liz:

That's right. So in Italy, and you see it on my label, aceto means Vinegar, balsamico, balsamic vinegar, aceto balsamico.

Nikki:

There it is.

Even that story, there is just a reminder of the history of olive oil and the history of vinegar and how they're such historical products, for lack of a better word. But I have to tell you, the current situation, the present of olive oil and vinegar, thanks to you and the work that you're doing. Holy cow.

I love the present and I'm so grateful for you for sharing these with me and walking our listeners through why they're so special.

And now all they need to do is go to americanolivefarmer.com and use the discount code SIPWITHNIKKI as always, for these beautiful products and anything else that they see on there. So thank you for continuing to extend that as an official sponsor of SIP with Nikki. We thank you, Nikki.

Liz:

It's my pleasure. And for the listeners who have already shopped with us, I want to remind all of you that there is a rewards program.

So you earn $5 for every $50 spent. And so even though the coupon is for the introduction, you continue to save and you'll save on top.

You know that if you bought the trio at a discount and you had some store credit, you could apply that. So we try to make it really easy to enjoy these. These products.

Nikki:

And thank you for.

Liz:

So happy to be part of that.

Nikki:

Yeah. Returning customers, existing customers, get a store credit to apply to the next purchase. That's amazing. And a subscription saves on everything.

Liz:

That's right.

Nikki:

Thank you, my friend. This is always such a pleasure. I'm gonna cheers you with my balsamic in my little glass here. Oh. And finish that. Thank you. Cheers.

Liz:

Cheers.

Nikki:

I really meant it when I told her. Gosh, Liz, I learned so much every time that we have a call together. And today was really no exception.

Not only all the fun catchphrases and industry terms from the olive oil and vinegar world that she likes to catch me up on, but just the process that really sets her products apart. I knew they were high end, custom crafted, small batch, and all the things just like wine that we celebrate.

But now I know, and hopefully you do, too. The process of how these oils are flavored and how authentic it is.

And, man, I can't wait to finish recording this outro because I'm dying to go make dinner. Make my beautiful salmon with the lemon oil followed by popcorn with basil oil and parmigiano. Reggiano. Oh, my gosh.

As always, thank you, Liz, for your time. I know you're busy walking the olive orchard so for you to take the time to catch our listeners up on what's new on your website is amazing.

So make sure you visit americanolivefarmer.com, use the code SIPWITHNIKKI for $10 off your order. And if you're already a customer, think of subscribing.

And don't forget that you also have your store credit from your previous orders that you can apply. I think all of these would be beautiful with a charcuterie board and also on pizza, as you heard me say.

of this recording in June of:

Visit our website solevatowines.com Remember, so Levato's Italian for joyful and uplifted. And we'll give you 10% off your order when you use the code podlistener. Get the olive oil, get the vinegar, get the wine. Feel the joy. You're welcome.

And whatever you do between now and next week, I hope that you sip well.

Liz:

Don't.

Nikki:

Don'T.

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