For Debbie Baron, it started with a gift, a bottle of olive oil she received from a friend.
“It was the best olive oil I’d ever had, and he said he got it at an olive oil store. So that’s how it started for me,” she says. “Six months later, I was doing this.”
“This” is Monterey’s Tasty Olive Bar, and for Baron – who has long been the owner/operator of the Cannery Row candy shop Candy Baron, just a few blocks away – it’s a wholesale departure from the wares she’s accustomed to trading in.
“This is the candy store for adults,” she says. “I still love the candy store, but I think this is my new passion.”
The store opened on Cannery Row in July, and Baron says she’s had a great response from both the community and tourists passing through.
“We’ve had quite a few locals come in and do refills for a dollar off,” she says. “The travelers are enjoying it as well, because it’s kind of a unique store for them.”
For me, it started with a combination of peach white balsamic vinegar and Baklouti green chili pepper olive oil, set out on a table near the store’s entrance. A little pour into a tasting thimble, a dip of fresh bread, and the tasting travels began.
The combination brought a completely new and unexpected flavor to my palate, with strong peach notes on the front that begin to party with a creeping kick, and in the end the competing flavors fuse. It’s not a combo I could imagine using often, but it is convivial and awakens the palate.
One could visit the tasting bar a dozen times and never see that combo again – Baron’s employees experiment with different combinations and open a visitor’s mind to possibilities perhaps beyond their usual way of thinking about oils and vinegars.
And oh the possibilities: The store stocks more than two dozen types of oil and three dozen types of vinegar, nearly all of which are olive and balsamic, respectively. And every one of them is open for a tasting. Most oils and vinegars sell for $11.95 for a 200-ml bottle, $17.95 for 375 ml and $29.95 for 750 ml.
Several of the oils are fused with flavors, some typical – think garlic or lemon – some never-before-encountered, like the organic butter flavor, which doesn’t actually contain any butter (and has a flavor reminiscent of butter Jelly Belly’s).
I’ve tried every oil in the shop, and though cleansing the palate becomes tricky with an extended tasting, there were some flavors that stood out. The basil olive oil would pair nicely with fresh tomato and mozzarella, and the chipotle with anything that asks for a mild little kick to round out flavor. The wild mushroom had a lovely earthiness I imagine would match well with a pasta or chicken dish. The tarragon was distinctive and complex, and would provide a welcome note in a salad dressing or on a white meat.
For me though, plain olive oils are tops, and the selection at this bar is impressive: Eight different varieties spanning from mild to robust in intensity, and sourced from all over the world, from Spain and Tunisia to Australia and Peru. If you’ve never thought about seriously tasting olive oil, this is a good place to start: Each varietal is accompanied with tasting notes like a wine vintage, and my favorite is the Picual Extra Virgin, a medium-intensity olive oil from Australia which is “super early harvest” and brings “creamy” and “green tomato and tomato leaf flavors,” the note reads. “Grassy, herbal notes make for one complex oil.”
For Baron, discovering the world of fine olive oil completely redefined her understanding of the common kitchen staple.
“There’s a huge difference in taste, and a big difference in health benefits. I always thought I was eating real olive oil, but I wasn’t,” she says, adding that in delving into extra virgin territory, she’s learned that much of the olive oil for sale in the U.S. isn’t properly certified. But that’s not why she thinks her olive oils – all of which are certified extra virgin – are superlative.
“For me the clincher was just the taste,” she says. “If you’re just tasting side-by-side, you can really tell the freshness.”
The balsamic vinegar selection at Monterey’s Tasty Olive Bar is extensive, almost overwhelming.
As with the oils, a few of the balsamic vinegars sound like typical food-nerd fare – like fig or Champagne dark – but the rest will surprise: cinnamon pear, dark chocolate, dark espresso, pomegranate, juniper. Then there’s the white balsamics: Blenheim apricot, cara cara orange-vanilla, coconut, jalapeño.
And those are just a small few. The store also sells jarred olives, and dried pasta made from heirloom wheat Baron says has the enzymes to digest gluten.
It’s all part of her store’s vision: “It’s a whole food experience, to help people see what the possibilities are for better health.”