This is an older post but I’ve freshened it up a bit!
It’s been fun watching Brightland grow. I used to feel really different and special having it, but now it is everywhere! Earlier in the week, I was over one of my guy friend’s houses and was so excited to see it in his kitchen (he’d been served an Instagram ad for it). And if you follow me on Instagram, you have probably seen me gushing about it. Or at least drizzle it over ricotta toast or all of my favorite summer salads. It is the absolute best.
Review of Brightland Olive Oil
In all honesty, I didn’t really care about it at first. My friend Hitha reached out to me. She wanted to introduce me to her friend Aishwarya Iyer who’d founded the company. To use Hitha’s words, she liked Brightland’s olive oils so much that she invested in the company. (What a “goalsy” statement!!!) High quality olive oil. Cool? Aishwarya offered to send me a bottle and I said “sure” but felt pretty indifferent about it. What would make it any nicer than regular old olive oil from the grocery store? Why should I care? Buying olive oil was never something I put a lot of thought into.
Flash forward a couple of months: I’ve now bought 3 more bottles with my own money, 2 more bottles for my parents, and pretty much put it on EVERYTHING. It’s become my favorite little luxury. You can even drizzle it over ice cream!
Product Description
Brightland Olive Oil is an extra virgin olive oil made in California. Brightland oils have a high polyphenol count, which makes them extra healthy. (If you didn’t know, a polyphenol is a compound with powerful antioxidant properties.) They’re loaded with good fats and anti-inflammatory properties. Great for making salad dressings, drizzling over protein or fish, pretty much anything! With a high polyphenol count at the time of harvest (756 mg/kg) it is loaded with antioxidants and powerful anti-inflammatory ingredients. Besides that, they just taste better than any other olive oils… if you need proof, check out these blind taste test results!
The bottle design is also pretty special. If you’re having a dinner party, it will look beautiful on the table. Each varietal comes in a 375 ML/12.7 fl oz glass bottle that has been UV-coated to protect the olive oil from damaging light. Another cool thing about the bottle is that each of the bottles features limited edition labels created by designers and artists.
The five varietals I tried
Nothing like a little bit of taste testing!
Rosette Olive Oil – GARLIC
Rosette is Brightland’s newest olive oil and is probably my second favorite varietal. It’s bright, delicious, and a little spicy! I love this one when I’m cooking fish, but it’s also great in salad dressing or drizzled on pretty much everything (my favorites: french fries, bread, and labneh dip!). On the podcast, Aish mentioned putting this on garlic bread (with butter), and I absolutely need to do that.
Awake Olive Oil
Awake was my introduction to Brightland. This is what I recommend as a starting point. If I were new to Brightland, I’d recommend ordering this and another oil. (My personal pick would be Lucid, but I am partial to lemon… they sell an Awake and Alive duo which is a best seller and one of my favorite gifts to give – the Alive Olive Oil is a best seller.). Awake is herbaceous and green. Brightland Awake is very tasty. Goes with everything and the perfect introduction to the brand. It will change your opinion on olive oil; a gateway drug, if you will! It’s great with soups and stews, fried eggs, pasta, bread, roasted veggies, and more.
Lucid Olive Oil – LEMON
Lucid is Brightland’s 100% Lemon Olive Oil. It’s made from Frantoio olives and is probably my favorite oil, simply because I love all things lemon. I use this alone (no vinegar) with a bit of salt and pepper on my salad, I drizzle it over ricotta toast… there are endless ways to use it (and it comes with a recipe for both a martini and pancakes, which I plan to make!) It’s citrusy and smooth and positively DELICIOUS.
Arise Olive Oil – BASIL
Arise is a limited-edition spring basil olive oil! Also, kind of cool: the bottle design is by fashion designer Peter Som! This one is made from basil and Frantoio olives. It’s smooth and herbaceous, and you definitely get the basil notes. This one is ideal over salads and veggies and is surprisingly delightful over berries or melon!
Ardor – CHILI
If you like spicy, this one is for you! Hitha raves and raves about it, but I’m not really a spicy person, so this is actually my least favorite. But I LOVE drizzling it over the dip for just a little kick (it’s amazing with labneh or yogurt dips). This one is made with several different peppers (chili, jalapeno, chipotle), paprika, and Frantoio olives. It’s smokey and fiery and a limited edition, so if you love spicy, scoop this up before it’s gone!
How is Brightland Olive Oil Different?
Brightland is a California olive oil which is actually pretty rare for olive oil! It’s (except when noted above) made with Cortina olives and packaged in a thick, white-coated glass to keep it going bad. Each bottle is labeled with the month and year of harvest. Most producers don’t label their olive oils with the date of harvest, so there’s no way to tell how old the olive oil was when it was bottled. The truth is that olive oil can go rancid.
Aishwarya worked in finance and then cosmetics marketing and moved from New York City to LA, hoping for a healthier lifestyle. But as she and her husband started to get more into cooking, they found themselves getting sick. With research and elimination, they realized the culprit was actually their olive oil. After doing quite a bit of research, they realized how bad a lot of olive oil can be, which led Aishwarya to start Brightland.
Brightland was created with the intent of better, honest food production, focusing on high-quality ingredients. Their olive oils are never rotten or overprocessed and never contain fillers or artificial preservatives. The harvest date is always noted so that you don’t wind up buying olive oil that’s rancid or about to go bad.
Cooking With Brightland Olive Oil
With a smoke point of 410 degrees, there’s no need to shy away from cooking with Brightland! I personally cook with it sparingly as it IS more expensive, but you can absolutely cook with it if you choose to.
Those gold spouts!
Brightland also sells them here, for $9 a spout, so you can purchase easily when buying olive oil. I bought mine on Amazon for a little less (two for $14) but they keep selling out. Wayfair also sells them!
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may earn a small commission.
photo by Allie Provost.
I’ve heard a lot about this olive oil! It sounds divine and bonus, the packaging is so cute! ❤️✨
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
Yeah the bottles are beautiful – and so thoughtfully designed!
I never heard of this oil and wish we could get it here! Beautiful packaging as well 🙂
Lisa | lisaautumn.com
The chili oil is AMAZING drizzled on pizza! Or dipping pizza into. Or to use the pizza as a spoon just to eat the oil.
OH I LOVE that idea!!!! hahaha
Thinking of trying this out … you make it sound so tempting! On a nonrelated note: I just got a FedEx alert that the top I ordered from your Drop collection is coming today!! Excited! Have a great day.
oh my gosh YAY! Please snap a pic when you get it. I’m so excited!!!
I am going to give it a try! As someone who has never been a fan of California olive oil, needs to be from Italy due to the bitter taste of CA oils in general IMO, I’m intrigued. Love the high smoke point and will start with the awake per your suggestion although my husband will love the Ardor 🙂
Oooh please keep me posted on how you like it. It sounds like you are already pretty proficient in olive oil (I’m not!!) so I’ll be curious on your take. My dad was shocked that they’re from CA, he said the same thing!
This made for a fun/yummy thoughtful-but-not-extravagant birthday gift my boyfriend’s mom. I went with the Lemon. Huge hit 🙂
Aw I am so glad!!! I got it for my dad for Father’s day and he loved it, which was a big win for me as I feel like he is SO hard to shop for!!!!
Hi! I was wondering what the shelf life for olive oil is? I cook with it a lot, but I wasn’t sure when it goes rancid. Thanks!
Hi! Brightland’s shelf life is 6 months! This little article is also helpful!!!!
https://brightland.co/blogs/field-notes/3-enemies-of-olive-oil#:~:text=Brightland's%20shelf%20life%20is%206,so.%22%20So%20drink%20up!
I really want to try this!! I love your post as it gives a good overview of the products! Do you happen to have a promo code for this brand?
I don’t! I even reached out to the brand directly to ask them if they could give me a discount code for my audience and they said no. Haha (this is not a sponsored post, I just love it so much I wanted to share!)
Just last night I watched this fascinating video about the benefits of olive oil, and how it’s directly related to longevity (it’s why Italians and Mediterranean people live so much longer than others)! You should watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekXzyNfx-nc
Obviously this is a sign that I should order some olive oil! Just ordered the Awake and Lucid oils per your recommendation! Thanks!
Oh wow, thanks so much for sharing! That’s really cool!
This is the perfect gift idea for my mom! Of course, I’ll get one to try it out for myself too. 🙂
I should have also added that your post is very helpful – I’ve been looking on their site, but I didn’t know which oil to start with and kept thinking “which would Grace recommend?” Now I know!
Yay I’m so glad!!!
Aw amazing, I got it for my dad and he loved it!
Darn, I JUST bought a bottle yesterday after hearing you talk about it on the podcast!! I totally would have bought via your affiliate link. But you totally influenced me! <3
No worries!!! Hope you love it!!!
Fully influenced by you and Hitha on this one… and as a person who loves fancy ingredients but usually doesn’t spend too much on them… this is SO WORTH IT. Already eyeing the other flavors. Thanks for the slick rec. xo
Oh good!!!! So happy you love.
Got Awake based on your recommendation & I am eagerly awaiting its arrival!
YAY! Let me know how you like it!
Please send me price of Brightland Olive oil and address to order. THANK YOU
Hi Grace – after all of the hype on your Instagram I finally gave in after reading this and purchased 🙂 I cannot wait to receive my bottles (ordered Awake + Arise due to my love of basil). After looking at their website, I was having trouble determining which flavors would work best with my palette and this post helped substantially. TG
OH GOOD – yeah that’s why I wrote the post, people had so many questions about the flavors!!! Happy it helped and ENJOY!
So I bought a bottle of this for my friend as a housewarming gift and she loved it! I was a little nervous because she is a culinary major and works in the R&D segment of the food industry, but it got her stamp of approval! Thanks for the recommendation, Grace!
Aw I am so glad!!!!!!!! Thank you!
We gifted several sets of the oil and balsamic at Christmas and everyone is hooked!! Will have to try the new varietal 🙂
It’s my FAV gift to give as it’s such a great little luxury!
I bet this would make a nice Christmas or a house-warming gift for someone. I loooove the idea of receiving a beautiful bottle/container full of nice quality oil, food, or wine. Thanks for the recommendation!
you’re so welcome!
Hi – has the code expired? I tried using it on 9/23 and it didn’t work. Thanks.
Hi! It was changed – here’s the new code! Will work through end of month: BADONPAPER0921
Thank you. Ordered the oil & honey 🙂
I must be missing something because I’ve tried it and find it’s definitely not worth the money. Graza is so much better!
Completely disagree but to each their own!