OLIVE & SINCLAIR · EAST NASHVILLE
AN APPRECIATION BY ROB URBAN
A little ingenuity.
A lot of character.
Chocolate, Southern food traditions
and the people who bring them together.
Start with
a hair dryer.
A hair dryer belongs in the origin story of Olive & Sinclair.
In the company’s account of Scott Witherow’s early experiments, he used one with a culinary strainer to separate cacao nibs from their shells. The beans were roasted in an oven and cracked with equipment that resembled an old sausage grinder.
It is a wonderful image of someone working out how to make the thing he wants to make.
By late 2007, Witherow was experimenting with batches of just a few pounds. Before that, he had worked in restaurants and studied at Le Cordon Bleu in London.
I am drawn to the meeting of formal training and household improvisation. Knowledge gave him somewhere to begin; curiosity kept the experiment moving.
A place in
the recipe.
Olive & Sinclair calls its work Southern Artisan Chocolate.
Its published history explains that stone-ground grits helped inspire its approach to grinding cacao. The company also identifies brown cane sugar as a defining ingredient.
That connection makes me smile. A familiar regional food becomes a way to think about a different one.
Tradition can be a generous source of ideas. Someone learns to recognize a technique, an ingredient or a texture, then carries that knowledge into a new project.
Olive & Sinclair’s Southern identity interests me because it shows up in these actual choices. There is something to follow from the idea into the making.
Good things
happen
between makers.
The process description extends that connection through bourbon-barrel-aged cacao nibs, smoking techniques and buttermilk in chocolate.
The company’s history also credits Allen Benton as a collaborator on its Smoked Nib Brittle.
That named relationship is an appealing part of the story. A region’s food culture lives in people who know how to do particular things. Collaboration gives those kinds of knowledge a chance to meet.
I enjoy the inventiveness of this work: a chocolate maker asking what a smokehouse or a familiar Southern ingredient might contribute.
It makes me curious about the conversations that happen before a product is finished. The public account gives enough detail to see that there are other makers and other traditions in the room.
A building
with an appetite.
The East Nashville factory has its own food story.
According to Olive & Sinclair, the building at 1628 Fatherland Street began as an H.G. Hill grocery in 1890 and later housed the Archway Cookie Company. The chocolate company moved there in the fall of 2014.
The continuity is lovely: different businesses, across different generations, giving people something to eat.
The factory account also describes reclaimed heart pine used in the building, old factory lighting brought from an army barrack outside Atlanta, and a vintage EAT sign found in Virginia.
Those details suggest the pleasure of finding a home for things with a past. The building’s character comes partly from the care taken in choosing what belongs inside it.
I like a place that rewards noticing. Even before considering the chocolate, there is a story in the materials around the work.
The next batch.
The working day.
The makers page introduces Jason Thompson as chocolate maker and production manager, responsible for the factory’s daily activity. It also describes him and Witherow as longtime friends.
That friendship adds another thread to the company’s history.
A finished bar passes through a working day: equipment starts, ingredients are handled, decisions are made and tasks are shared. Naming the person overseeing that day helps readers appreciate the human work inside a familiar object.
Factory tours provide another way into the process. The company invites visitors to see how its chocolate is made, giving them an opportunity to connect what they buy with the place and people making it.
So much
to notice.
What I admire about Olive & Sinclair is how much curiosity fits inside this one business.
A chef experiments with a hair dryer and small batches. Southern food traditions suggest possibilities. Other makers contribute knowledge. An old grocery becomes a chocolate factory.
The result is a company whose story makes me want to notice more: the person behind a recipe, the building around a workshop, the local tradition behind an unexpected ingredient.
That is a worthwhile gift from a maker, even before a wrapper is opened.
Keep exploring Companies I Admire. If the people and traditions behind your company deserve a closer look, I would enjoy that conversation.
Rob Urban
The chocolate and its home.
Who founded Olive & Sinclair?
Scott Witherow founded Olive & Sinclair. The company dates its beginnings to 2007 and describes his early experiments with small batches of chocolate.
What makes the company’s approach Southern?
Its published accounts connect the chocolate to stone-ground grits, brown cane sugar, bourbon-barrel aging, smoking techniques, buttermilk and collaborations with Southern makers.
Where is the chocolate factory?
Olive & Sinclair identifies its factory as 1628 Fatherland Street in East Nashville. It moved there in fall 2014, into a building with an earlier history as a grocery and cookie-company space.
Can visitors learn about the making process?
The company offers factory-tour information through its official website. Consult that page for current booking availability and visiting details.