Olive Oil Divine Podcast

Flavor Favorites: Inside Olive Oil Divine's Best-Sellers

• Greg & Shirley Mueller • Episode 8

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What Are Your Best Selling Products?

What makes certain olive oils "medicinal," and why are customers increasingly swapping wine gifts for premium oil and vinegar sets? The answers reveal fascinating shifts in culinary culture and health awareness.

Greg and Shirley Mueller, owners of Olive Oil Divine, take listeners behind the scenes of their gourmet specialty shop, sharing which products consistently fly off shelves and why. Their high-polyphenol Zoe olive oil (with an impressive 1870 count) tops the list as health-conscious customers discover its benefits, while their Italian Herb infused oil claims the flavor favorite spot. For those curious about the science, Greg explains how they carefully match polyphenol levels to intended uses – higher for health benefits, lower for flavored varieties to prevent overwhelming the infusions.

The balsamic vinegar conversation ventures into unexpected territory with bourbon-infused options perfect for grilling season and a champagne balsamic (made with French champagne grapes but non-alcoholic) that Shirley recommends adding to everything from egg salad to other vinegars for brightness. Perhaps most intriguing is their 25-year aged "Catch 25" balsamic that Shirley declares transformed how she enjoys steak.

Beyond individual products, the Muellers reveal a growing trend of customers choosing olive oil and balsamic sets as sophisticated alternatives to wine gifts for dinner parties and housewarming presents. Their custom gift baskets featuring olive wood accessories and personalized labeling options for realtors have created an entirely new market. With mentions of their natural margarita mix and versatile spice blends like the popular Tuscany bread dipping seasoning, it's clear why customers come for a specific product but leave with inspiration for entire meals.

Curious about elevating your cooking with these gourmet essentials? Visit Oliveoildivine.com or stop by their store to discover why these products are creating such devoted fans and turning everyday cooks into kitchen heroes.

To learn more about Olive Oil Divine visit:
https://oliveoildivine.com/
Olive Oil Divine
2517 N. Roan Street
Johnson City, TN 37601
423-707-7087

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Olive Oil Divine podcast, your go-to source for culinary inspiration. Join Greg and Shirley Muller, owners of Olive Oil Divine, as they share tips, stories and insights to make you a kitchen hero. From authentic extra virgin olive oils to rich-aged Italian balsamic vinegars, We've got everything you need to elevate your cooking. Live divine.

Speaker 2:

Ever wonder which gourmet goodies fly off the shelves at Olive Oil Divine? Greg and Shirley spill the infused oil on their top fan favorites. Welcome back everyone. Skip Monty here, co-host, slash producer, back in the studio with owners of Olive Oil Divine, greg and Shirley Muller. Greg, shirley how have you guys been?

Speaker 3:

We're doing great.

Speaker 4:

Good morning, Skip. We're doing good. We got morning coffee in hand. Welcome to our kitchen, by the way.

Speaker 2:

Amen. Well, I'm with you, brother, Got my coffee as well and I'm excited to be in the famous kitchen of Greg and Shirley Muller. But before we get a tour and look around and do some cooking, I'd like to ask what are your best-selling products at Olive Oil Divine?

Speaker 4:

Golly, that's a hard one. But you know there are a few fan favorites that we can certainly identify and I guess it really depends on which category of product we're talking about. So maybe I'll take a few and let shirley highlight a few. But obviously, of course our oils are our prime product and I would say most popular by bottles going out the door would be our zoe, which is our high polyphenol medicinal oil, because people are really starting to learn about that and it's becoming quite popular. But other than that, for the oils, the italian herb is high up there in a number one spot. You know some of our other varietals that come from Italy and Greece and Spain. They would rival, coming in close second behind the zoe. The varietals are really starting to take off and people are really starting to realize just how good true extra virgin olive oil is. So what do you think, shirley?

Speaker 3:

Well, I will make an announcement. We just brought in a new varietal. It's called Lachino. It's from Italy. Polyphenol is around 500. It has a really great taste to it. We just brought that in and we got it on the floor yesterday. So it's out there. It's ready for anyone to come in and do a tasting.

Speaker 2:

I'm sorry, what's that called again?

Speaker 3:

Lachino.

Speaker 2:

Lachino.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

And you said it had 500.

Speaker 3:

500 polyphenol.

Speaker 2:

And is that what's your target for polyphenol?

Speaker 3:

Well, we try to get the highest that we possibly can For medicinal purposes. The zoid, that is 1870. Um, another one is bequal. That one is 1310 in polyphenol. And then we also go down to the medium because a lot of people likes just a good plain varietal mulled olive oil. So we'll go down around low 500s, 400s. It really depends on the crop that year, because we don't know what the polyphenol is until they actually press it.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, Skip, a lot of our flavored oils are actually in the 200 and 300 range because you don't want the polyphenols to overpower the flavor that you're trying to produce with the oil. So we have the broad spectrum from absolute mild, low polyphenol, low pungency, all the way up to the extreme with the zoys. So everything and in between yeah. Wow and as far as popular.

Speaker 2:

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3:

The higher, the better for medicinal purposes and the stronger it tastes.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's gonna give you that kick in the back of your throat the higher the polyphenol number.

Speaker 2:

And okay. Well, that was going to be my next question. Is there a connection with the flavor and polyphenol volume? I guess, and apparently the answer to that?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, the polyphenol can overpower the flavor. If we flavor a too high of a phenolic oil then it could overpower the flavor and we don't want that.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha. So where does the? I remember on the walking tour you talked about the bourbon flavor. Did you have a bourbon?

Speaker 4:

flavor, or is that vinegar? That's the balsamic vinegar. And yeah, that bourbon flavor is made with wild turkey rare breed and it's quite popular. It's especially now time to fire up the grills and get the steaks going. That's a great grilling balsamic. Shirley's favorite the Cash 25, is probably our close to it's running in a tie with our champagne balsamic as far as the favorite goes there for lots of uses and we'll show that in a cooking video, perhaps next. Okay.

Speaker 2:

Tell me about the champagne vinegar.

Speaker 3:

The champagne is a very light vinegar. It's made with a French champagne grape, so it's non-alcoholic, but it just has a light, airy flavor. It goes with anything. I like to mix some balsamics together and sometimes I'll take the champagne and add just a little touch to it and it really livens up that balsamic there's. Sometimes I'll even use two balsamics and an oil together just to get a nice flavor in. It depends on what I'm putting it on. If I'm doing a pasta, I'll do that with it. The 25 I had a customer come in last week and said he'll add the champagne with the 25-year-old balsamic.

Speaker 4:

He froze.

Speaker 3:

So there's just so much you can do with balsamic vinegars.

Speaker 2:

You froze. Does the champagne balsamic actually have a champagne taste, or can you taste?

Speaker 3:

alcohol in it? No, there's no alcohol in it, it's just the actual grape that they use.

Speaker 4:

It's made with a champagne vinegar which is non-alcoholic.

Speaker 2:

So it does have the flavor of champagne, just no alcohol.

Speaker 4:

Okay, well, go ahead. The champagne that you were talking about, um is, uh, is actually flavored with champagne vinegar, so it's alcohol free. You can taste the champagne flavor, but just not the alcohol oh, wow.

Speaker 2:

So, uh, not something you want to take a swig of while you're, while you're cooking.

Speaker 4:

Well, you could. I mean, but you're not going to it's not going to relax you, Dwayne, unless you just enjoy the flavor.

Speaker 2:

Well, I know for past episodes you've been known to take a swig of polyphenol straight out of the bottle. Oh yeah, yeah, that's healthy for you.

Speaker 4:

Now you could. You could, I guess, take a swig of the bourbon and start to feel it, but you probably get sick before you start feeling the effects of the alcohol, because it's so small.

Speaker 2:

I would imagine. I would imagine Now you guys sell gift sets too, right?

Speaker 3:

We do. We do gift baskets. We'll do them on demand. If someone comes in and wants a gift basket. If we're busy we'll get it done and ask them to come back. But most of the time, as soon as they walk in the door, we can create a basket with them and then we'll put it together and then they just walk out the door with it. We do a lot of corporate gifts. I do a lot of gifts for realtors, um, because we actually can put their logo on a label. So we get quite a few realtors out there that comes in and does, uh, housewarming gifts for us with us.

Speaker 2:

Wow, do you have anything that's really popular or more popular than other gift sets?

Speaker 3:

A lot of people, a lot of our realtors, like our olive wood. We'll do an olive wood cutting board with an oil and a vinegar and some spices and a dip plate. Or we'll do the bread olive wood piece that we have a bread holder and we'll do an oil and vinegar in it and a spice skip.

Speaker 4:

A lot of people just will come in and buy an oil and a vinegar for for bread dipping and give that as a housewarming gift or a dinner party gift and bring that instead of a bottle of wine. That's really becoming a popular trend now is to give olive oil and balsamic vinegar in place of wine.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's actually a very positive thing. Give people more healthy gifts. Well, do you on both, either balsamic or olive oil? Do you have any garlic infused olive oil? I love, I'm a big fan of garlic.

Speaker 4:

We actually have both garlic olive oil and garlic balsamic vinegar, so come, get your garlic breath at our place and then we have a couple of other oils.

Speaker 3:

We have a Parmesan garlic and then we have a Parmesan garlic rosemary. We have a melange that's got some garlic in it, and it's got garlic, basil, rosemary and oregano in it. So we have a variety of different oils with garlic, or you can get it just plain garlic.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow, and we can also get them in the seasonings.

Speaker 4:

We've got bread dipping seasonings that are very popular, that are going to have some garlic in it. Perhaps some of the cooking for grilling seasonings and rubs will have garlic. And number one of our favorites and most popular is the Tuscany bread dipping. For the bread dipping and then, of course, for cooking it's the Austin Steakhouse rub. And then I can't forget to to bring up the truffle parmesan. That's becoming a really big fan favorite because that's good on just about anything. It's it's a nice light seasoning with some black truffle and a little bit of salt and sea salt and it's. It just flies out the door oh my gosh and then,

Speaker 3:

we have some pasta.

Speaker 2:

It's way too early to be this hungry well, now we haveas.

Speaker 3:

That's got garlic in it too, so if you really like garlic, you can get your garlic fix with us. You sure can.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow, wow Pasta I think we talked about that in our walking tour. Wow, so you can basically come in and get an entire meal in your store easily.

Speaker 3:

You sure could. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Do uh, do folks do that Like come by and say hey, for supper tonight I'm going to do pasta with uh uh bourbon balsamic, oh wow.

Speaker 4:

One of my favorite partying partying comments is we're checking customers out is what's for dinner tonight?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I can imagine that folks, you know, while they're shopping, are thinking, okay, I'm going to make this tonight. Well, as far as balsamics, I don't know if, Greg, if you mentioned your favorite balsamic, but I wanted to ask both of you that but I wanted to ask both of you that Well, there's so many that I like because I use them for different things.

Speaker 3:

For steaks, I love the catch 25 over my steak. That's the only way I'll eat my steak.

Speaker 2:

Catch 25.

Speaker 3:

And as far as oh yeah, that's the 25-year-old balsamic.

Speaker 2:

Ooh age.

Speaker 3:

If I'm having crab legs, I like to take the bourbon and I'll put the butter olive oil in it, and I like to dip my crab legs in the butter olive oil with the bourbon.

Speaker 2:

Oh wow, I'm starving now If I'm doing egg salad.

Speaker 3:

I add a splash of champagne in my egg salad. Instead of vinegar, I use the balsamic vinegar in my egg salad.

Speaker 2:

I bet that's good Greg what about you?

Speaker 3:

Oh, it's real good.

Speaker 2:

Greg, what about you?

Speaker 4:

Skip, I'm sitting here thinking about dinner already, so you know I can't not bring up a margarita mix that we just have. We've just reintroduced. It's all natural ingredients and fresh real juices and it's a citrus agave mix and it makes killer margaritas. So that would go great with that steak that Shirley's talking about.

Speaker 2:

Oh, man, well, I got to tell you guys, I have taken a lot of notes. Catch 25, the Italian herb the Zoe, the Lachino, is that how it's pronounced, lachino?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's Italian.

Speaker 2:

Lachino, I've got a list so far and I'm starving to death, so I think we need to wrap this thing up before I'm drooling on camera. But I'm sure a lot of our listeners made a list as well of your best-selling products and we appreciate you sharing with us and look forward to our next episode, where I think we're going to be doing some cooking. Huh, and we appreciate you sharing with us and look forward to our next episode. Well, I think we're going to be doing some cooking.

Speaker 3:

Huh, yes, sir, some ideas yeah.

Speaker 2:

All right, sounds good. We will see you guys. Thanks for your time today and we'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 3:

Our pleasure, our pleasure.

Speaker 1:

All right. Thanks for tuning in to the Olive Oil Divine podcast. Don't forget to visit us online at oliveoildivinecom for our exceptional olive oils, aged balsamic vinegars and more. If you're local, stop by our store and discover how we can make you a kitchen hero. Until next time, live divine.