Good Eats: Try with fresh strawberries, drizzle over warm brownies or chocolate cake, makes an incredibly rich winter vinaigrette. Splash a bit over ice cream.
Perfect Pairs: Roasted Walnut Oil, Roasted Almond Oil, Lemon, Blood Orange or any mild EVOO
Sultry, fragrant Tahitian vanilla beans are coupled with our 18 year aged Traditional Balsamic Vinegar. The resulting collaboration, Vanilla Balsamic Vinegar, is intoxicating as it is exotic.
Vanilla is a flavoring derived from the fruits of the Vanilla orchid, a native plant of Mexico. Vanilla is the second most expensive spice [after saffron], due to the extensive labor required to hand-pollinate and grow the vanilla seed pods. Vanilla to enhances the flavor of other delicious dishes with complementary tastes, such as chocolate, custards, caramel, coffee, and cakes.
Use Vanilla Balsamic Vinegar to marinate meat, fish, or vegetables, This is a sweet, dark balsamic vinegar that, alone, will impart a sweet sophistication to simple salads, or couple with any of our lighter, unflavored extra virgin olive oil for interesting salad dressings. One of our younger staff members combines Vanilla Balsamic Vinegar with Blood Orange Olive Oil, on top of spinach and diced melon, for what she calls a "Dreamsicle salad."
Drizzle soft goat cheeses like chevre, or fruits with Vanilla Balsamic Vinegar. And don't forget to try it with homemade ice cream! Who knew "plain vanilla" could be so exotic?
Balsamic Vinegar is a delicious aged vinegar, prized for its sweet-tart, concentrated flavor. We offer you the very best Balsamic Vinegars that we import directly from the rolling hills of Modena, Italy, where true balsamic vinegars have been produced since the Middle Ages.
True balsamic vinegar is not made from wine, as you might expect, but rather from pressed, un-fermented Trebbiano and Lambrusco grapes. The pressed grapes are simmered over an open flame, and reduced to a thick syrup. This sweet syrup is in turn fermented twice, then slowly aged and evaporated in a succession of smaller and smaller barrels, made from different aromatic woods. As the balsamic vinegar ages, moisture evaporates out, and the vinegar thickens and its complex flavors become more concentrated.
Balsamic Vinegar has many culinary uses, including salad dressings, dips, marinades, reductions and sauces. Try a splash of balsamic vinegar to enhance steaks, fish, egg dishes -- even fresh fruit, and on ice creams, gelati and desserts. Buon Appetito!