F. Oliver’s was the first place I tasted truly fresh EVOO. It was amazing to me that I’d been using olive oil for years, thinking it was just another cooking oil. I had a similar experience with F. Oliver’s spices and spice blends. The flavors were similar but the F. Oliver’s spices were so much more vibrant – in color and flavor.

I learned about spices in the same way I learned about EVOO – their origin, how to choose them, how to use them. As with all ingredients, fresh is best. In the case of spices, freshly ground spices are the most pungent and flavorful. While spices don’t go bad in the way that food does – they won’t make you ill – they do lose flavor and color over time. Using too much of an expired spice not only doesn’t give food the flavor you want but can introduce astringent and other flavors you don’t want.

The shelf life of spices vary slightly but generally, whole spices keep two to three years and ground spices keep about a year.  Spices that originate from roots (like turmeric and ginger) keep up to three years whole and two years ground.

At F. Oliver’s, we buy our spices and spice blends from The Spice House, one of the most reputable spice merchants in the world and one of the oldest in America. They source their spices from their country of origin and grind them fresh just hours before they ship them to us. We bottle them immediately and get them into the stores. Supermarket spices can take 12 to 18 months just to get onto the shelf, which decreases their shelf life significantly.

As part of our commitment to keeping our spice blends exceptionally fresh, the Spice Blend Blowout sale ensure they get used while they’re at their best. It just so happens that many of them are at their best on the grill! We recommend you use these spice blends within the next few months but we have so many great recipes and uses for them, that won’t be difficult.