The Bougie Kirkland Cooking Oil We Think Is Going To Be Another Costco Hit

If you still think "cheap" means "lower quality," you clearly need to shop at Costco more often. The discount grocery is filled with underrated all-stars at affordable price points, from beef cuts that make for mouthwatering pot roasts to low-cost, high-quality wines that'll satisfy aficionados on a budget. In fact, you can get all sorts of bougie items at Costco for a fraction of their costs elsewhere; you just have to know what to look for.

When it comes to cooking oils, one of Costco's lesser-known standouts is its Kirkland Signature 100% Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil. It was the second-best entry in Chowhound's ranking of Kirkland Signature olive oils, but it's still fairly low-key in terms of popularity online. It's currently flying under the radar with just six reviews on Costco's website, even though every single one of them gives it five stars. On Reddit, some customers even did blind taste tests of their own against other oils, and Kirkland Signature's 100% Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil came out the winner.

Interestingly enough, the oil was formulated specifically to suit the palate of the North American market. It's made from a blend of three olive varieties — Picual and Hojiblanca for pungency and a touch of bitterness, and Arbequina for fruitiness — all of which are grown and cultivated by mills and grower cooperatives in Spain. During harvest, the farmers treat the olives so delicately that they make sure the fruits never even touch the ground; talk about bougie. To maximize freshness, the olives are pressed into oil within 24 hours of harvesting, then shipped in dark tankers for bottling in North America.

Those in the know find Kirkland Signature 100% Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil to be the best ounce-for-ounce deal among Costco's olive oils, which is saying a lot considering Costco has a lot of good oils at low prices. For just $9.50 per liter on the Costco website, you get good-quality olive oil that's versatile enough to use both for cooking and for finishing. While it may seem like a big commitment considering the oil is sold only in 3-liter bottles, it's still a pretty good deal considering how much use you'll be getting out of all that olive oil.

The fact that it's a cold-pressed olive oil only adds to the value you're getting for your money. In general, cold-pressed olive oil never reaches a temperature above 80.6 degrees Fahrenheit during processing, preserving more of the volatile compounds that give it its flavor. This is especially important considering how carefully the olives are selected for this particular oil.

Because of how much the soil and climate olives grow in impacts their flavor, olive oils from different countries taste different. Spanish olive oil, for instance, tends to be fruitier, sweeter, and more savory than Italian olive oil, which tends to have more of an herbal flavor profile. Cold-pressing ensures that the specific blend of Picual, Hojiblanca, and Arbequina olives that go into Kirkland Signature 100% Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil stays as close as possible to its intended flavor. Based on our taste test, that means an olive oil with a funky, fruity, and bitter profile, finishing with subtle peppery notes.