Smokey Olive Wood

Origins

Smokey Olive Wood is a Belgian brand founded in 2012 that specialises in Mediterranean-profile smoking woods. Its range works olive, orange, almond, holm oak and vine sourced from the Iberian peninsula — the natural aromatic pantry of southern Europe — rather than the hickory and mesquite that dominate the American market.

What sets it apart

Each wood comes in several formats — chunks, chips and dust — with batch-level traceability, unusual for a product normally sold loose and undocumented. In the mikamado catalogue we carry its 1.5 kg Olive Wood Chunks: chunks are the format that pairs best with the long, closed cooks a kamado is built for, releasing smoke slowly over the coals instead of flaring off quickly like chips.

Our take

Olive gives a mild, faintly sweet smoke, more restrained than American hardwoods, that flatters fish, poultry and vegetables without smothering them. Based on the specifications, the user community and our own experience cooking on the Big Green Egg Large, we recommend it as a sensible way to explore native aromatic profiles. The small 1.5 kg pack is a plus for trying it without committing to a full sack; the trade-off is that, for anyone smoking every weekend, it works out pricier per kilo than the larger formats. It is a companion to your charcoal, not a replacement.