Olio Tasting Room

Very fun store, with lots of balsamic vinegars and oils to taste. Very welcoming, so just walk in and get some samples. You can try them in small cups by themselves, and there are also bread cubes as an other vehicle. They have many berry or fruit flavored balsamic vinegars, from chocolate raspberry, to pomegranate (sooo good), blueberry, Potomac Peach, cranberry, and many others. Great for bruschetta, or salads, or just snacking on with bread. They have lots of seasoned olive oils (including black truffle oil and a separate white truffle oil), as well as pumpkin, hazelnut, and walnut oils (new products). You can get these in two sizes (200 or 375 mL), and you can get a customized 4-​pack of bottles, and they can ship them anywhere in the US. Great ideas for presents, or for treating yourself!

Really friendly staff with a huge selection of oils and spices.

I like to bring my kids here. We have so much fun tasting, and when we get home they tend to eat more veggies, because they create their own dips with the olive oils and vinegars. I think it’s a good step towards expanding their palates, and I love the flavors here. We’ve been a few times, and the staff has been friendly.

This place has become one of my go-​to stores in Old Town. I’ve yet to try their olive oils, but I love their balsamic vinegar selection! I frequently roast big plates of veggies for dinner, and I love drizzling them with a traditional balsamic right after they come out of the oven. I use their white balsamics to make cocktails, which are amazing and refreshing during the summer! They seem to have started a rewards program where you get a free bottle for every 10 purchases, and they also will give you a 10% discount on a bottle for every empty bottle you bring back to be recycled.

This was a really fun and tasty store! They let you try the oils and vinegar’s and have a good deal for a gift set. My husband and I bought several gift sets (one for ourselves because we loved so many of the products). The employees were also all very friendly and helpful. Overall, I would definitely recommend this store!

I used to turn my nose up at infused olive oils. I’ve bought my own jars and thrown some herbs in with them and they’ve turned out great. So why pay for someone to do the same thing, right? Well, Olio changed my mind about all that. Their balsamics and infused olive oils are simply amazing. Anything that they sell, you can sample before you buy it. The people that work there are helpful without being pushy. I enjoy going here, I love their products and I recommend this place to all the foodies and cooks that I know.

An awesome place to stop in while walking through Old Town. It’s primarily an olive oil store but the they sell other products like balsamic vinegars, seasonings, and sauces. You’re allowed to taste pretty much any of the olive oils/​vinegars that you’d like. They have a number of unique oils I have yet to see anywhere else.
This place is great because the olive oils are freaking awesome. After experiencing olive oil tasting in Napa Valley, I have a pretty high bar for olive oils and the ones here are as good if not better than the ones offered there.
In particular, you must taste the silver tree olive oil. It’s easily one of the best I’ve ever had. If you do, good luck resisting buying it!

I had some time to kill and I was in the area so I aimlessly wandered into Olio Tasting Room. A store with nothing but olive oil and balsamic vinegar? Doesn’t make sense that they could stay in business for that long so I had to do some detective work.
Damn they have a lot of olive oils. As the name suggests there are samples of every oil and vinegar they have and you can go around and try them and mixtures out with some soft bread that’s provided. Many of the oils and vinegars have a very unique taste and aroma so if you’re looking for something for a Salad, dip, or cooking oil then you will surely find it and plenty more.

I really liked the balsamic vinegars here, but I was looking for a specific flavor they did not have :(
They had an amazing coconut flavor, and I liked a raspberry chocolate they had. The standard white/​red they have are really good.
I like the habanero olive oil. It has a kick but it wasn’t a bad kick for me.
I would have stayed longer but parking time was running out.
I will definitely be back.

This is a great place to try out new olive oils and balsamic vinegars. The staff is always friendly and helpful. The store is very clean and easy to navigate. The oils are in tins and little cups are available so that you can taste the different flavors. If you love to cook, or are just looking for new ways to dress salads, this is a great place to check out. They also sell sea salt blocks for cooking and a few other neat items like seasonings and jellies.

Olive Oil ice cream tastings yesterday!

I went to Olio on 3÷7÷14 for the first time. I was disappointed when I showed up at 7 pm and the doors were closed. (I had checked online and thought the store was open until 8 pm.) The women who was working was kind enough to unlock the store for me so I could shop. (and) Oh boy did I shop! I think. I discovered one of my favorite stores. (I am surprised. I just learned about this place.) I love all the different flavors of vinegars and oils. Although I have been to similar stores there is something about the way Olio is organized that makes it very pleasant shopping experience.
The women who was working was very knowledgeable and had a lot of suggestions for a vegetarian like myself. She also described Olio’s curbside pickup which is a great idea since it can be difficult to find parking in Old Town Alexandria.
The only con for this place (other than parking) is I am confused by why they sell soap and salt cooking trays although nice products I think it distracts from what makes this store really special.

We stop in here every time we’re in Alexandria, it’s just lovely. They have so many oils and vinegars and you are welcome to taste as many as you like. They even have water available, which is such a nice touch because tasting can make you quite thirsty. My favorite part about the store though is their jellies! Right now I am still working on a jar of their sweet onion and pepper jelly. It’s SO good. And last time I bought the jalapeño jelly mixed with a sweet fruit but I can’t remember the fruit! Perhaps it was apricot??? Whatever it was it was delicious.
Very friendly staff.

Olio Tasting Room is a fun place to visit. The ability to try out their amazing array of balsamics and oils is a real treat. While there is clearly something designed for every taste, their is a bit of an emphasis on sweeter balsamic combinations, suitable for drizzling over your fruit salad or desert.
The staff is unfailingly friendly and helpful in their suggestions. The prices are about what you would expect for this level of product. Give it a try!

The items here are so very delicious! I’ve purchased many things from here:
Oils — white truffle, rosemary
Vinegars — cranberry, cherry, chocolate
These items make great gifts for friends and family members (not to mention, yourself!). There’s a four-​bottle sample pack which is an economical purchase.
The free samples are utterly awesome. The people here are super helpful, and they don’t give you the evil eye when you keep eating and eating and eating…
Bottom line: Go! What are you waiting for?

You know how wine tasting is kinda-​sorta expensive? Well, it turns out that infused olive oil and balsamic vinegar tasting is free. Yeah. Free. And, except for the lack of buzz, just as fun.
My boyfriend’s sister walked us in here, and told us to get over to the Chocolate Raspberry Balsamic vinegar dispenser and dip some bread in it. I was a bit overwhelmed by how pretty this place was, and how well set up, but I wandered over and got to it. I had no idea balsamic vinegar could taste like chocolate! There were little cups and stashes of bread everywhere, so I started trying them all. Other favorite balsamics: caramel, fig, mango.
Then, the olive oils! I bought my mom some blood orange olive oil because I knew it would be amazing in the stir frys she cooks up, and she grew up the daughter of an orange rancher. This oil was an incredible citrus experience. But if I were purchasing for myself, I would have gone with the Chipotle olive oil — I want to go back and grab some, to add just that right kick to each meal.
They also had amazing dips, tapenades, salts… you’ve gotta get here. Reasonable prices, too. After they patiently watched me eat all their bread and taste every flavor, my bottle of oil was under $ 18.00.

I love this place.
The concept is easy and genius. A lot of infused olive oils and balsamics and you can try every single one before buying.
The staff is friendly without being pushy and they let you take your time. They are not ignoring you, they are just simply letting you enjoy your time at their store.
The oils are outstanding quality and worth the price.
We made two purchases and will definitely be coming back. I wish I knew about it before.

Walking into Olio Tasting Room is like walking into Costco on Saturday — samples samples samples!
Whereas Costco frequenters feign unfamiliarity/​interest with the samples — don’t deny it, you’ve done the whole «Ravioli? I am not familiar with this exotic frozen delicacy, I must have a few tastes!» shtick — the sense of wonder and novelty Olio invokes is the real deal. I hadn’t imagined that 75% of the items on display could exist. Case in point — honey balsamic. Not merely balsamic flavored with honey, but honey that had aged to the point of being bitingly tart, sweet, with definite honeycomb flavor. AMAZING.
The staff are super nice, helpful, and if you are shy about sampling, they will gently insist that you try something, plunk a mini Dixie of oil/​balsamic/​something into your hesitant hands, and blow your mind away.

I hardly ever to go Alexandria, but I dragged my lazy butt out of my comfy sofa and took the 30 minute metro ride just to restock on my favorite olive oil from Olio Tasting Room. I’ve been to a few of these taste-​and-​buy olive oil establishments, but have never has such a hard time choosing from so many satisfying selections.
The staff is friendly and helpful, but will leave you alone to sample the oils and vinegars in peace. I picked up my sundried tomato, garlic, and parmesan olive oil, which makes for an awesome meal over pasta with just some salt and pepper flakes. So good!
They were having some trouble with their credit card machine, which seems to happen from time to time. If you want to avoid possibly standing in front of the counter while the staff tries to fix the machine and then use a clumsy carbon paper hand-​swipe machine, have some cash on hand.

I wish they advertised better that you can customize your own 4-​bottle pack, because we would have done that had we known. There were lots of flavors that we liked but we didn’t want to buy expensive huge bottles!
I wonder if these oil tasting rooms are a new thing, as I have never seen one or heard of one until the past two weeks. I sincerely hope more come around because they are AWESOME. You get to go around with a tiny cup and sample most of the oils/​viniagrettes that they have out and the majority were absolutely delicious. My favorite here was the blood orange, and there were some other more savory ones that I liked. One had ginger which was really tasty and unique.
We had just bought a bottle of «white cranberry» viniagrette from another place in Philadelphia, the Tubby Olive, and loved it so much that we were pissed we didn’t buy more. I feel really lucky that Olio is nearby because now we have a place nearby to get our fancy oil fix!
If I had to complain about something, I wish they would close their doors because flies get in when the doors are open and that was the most unpleasant aspect of the visit. But winter will fix this problem naturally and overall I am a big fan!