Add this to the list of things that get (even) better with time: garlic.
Made by carefully fermenting the alliums, black garlic has long been a secret weapon used by chefs to add “an umami oomph” to savory dishes, says Patrick Lloyd, owner of Obis One, LLC, the Blacksburg-based company behind Black Crack and a line of other black garlic products. But now, he says, “we have customers that put Black Crack in their pocketbooks and put it on pizza.”
Lloyd started the company with his wife Lisa in 2012 after their experiments to transform garlic with heat, humidity—and lots of patience—began turning heads. The business moved from New Jersey to an innovation incubator at Virginia Tech University, where their two sons attend college, to continue honing the process. In 2017, Obis One became USDA Certified.
A two-pack of black garlic bulbs, aged at least six weeks, starts at $6.50 on Obis One’s website. The company’s bestselling Black Crack—a black garlic topping sold in a pepper grinder and named Saveur Magazine’s “addictive condiment” in 2015—is aged for more than two years and starts at $24.99.
Besides the taste, scientists say black garlic packs twice the antioxidant punch as its raw relative. Lloyd says some customers eat the sweet-and-savory black orbs daily as though they were vitamins, which is good for business.
But the best part, Lloyd says, of having your garlic mellowed by fermentation? No garlic breath.
