Tabasco sauce

What it is

Tabasco is an American brand of hot sauce made from vinegar, tabasco peppers, and salt. It is produced by the McIlhenny Company of Avery Island in southern Louisiana, having been created in 1868 by Edmund McIlhenny. Originally, the tabasco peppers were grown only on Avery Island; they are now primarily cultivated in Central America, South America, and Africa. The Tabasco sauce brand also has multiple varieties, including the original red sauce, habanero, jalapeño, chipotle, sriracha, and scorpion.

Key facts

What it is

brand source

Product

hot sauce source

Founded by

Edmund McIlhenny source

Created

1868 source

Country of origin

United States source

Headquarters

Louisiana source

In the maker's own words

Flavor Your World with TABASCO Brand sauces – from our Original Red Sauce, to bold hot sauces like Chipotle, Habanero, Sriracha and more. Discover our sauces, recipes, history, and more.

Learn everything there is to know about the history and creation of TABASCO Brand. Discover how Edmund McIlhenny created and sold his original pepper sauce, changed the history of hot sauce forever, and how its still being made in much the same way today.

Origin and history

According to the company's official history, Tabasco was first produced in 1868 by Edmund McIlhenny, a Maryland-born former banker who had moved to Louisiana around 1840. However, as Jeffrey Rothfeder's book McIlhenny's Gold points out, some of the McIlhenny Company's official history is disputed, and the politician Maunsel White was producing a tabasco pepper sauce two decades before McIlhenny. A 2007 book review by Mark Robichaux of The Wall Street Journal quotes Rothfeder's book: The story actually begins in the pre-Civil War era with a New Orleans plantation owner named Maunsel White, who was famous for the food served at his sumptuous dinner parties.

How it is made

Originally, all peppers used in Tabasco sauce were grown on Avery Island. Over time, growers were selected throughout Louisiana to accommodate demand and during the 1960s, the company established farms in various Latin American countries. As of 2013, peppers grown on the island are used to produce seed stock, which is then shipped to foreign growers. Several sauces are produced under the Tabasco brand name. A few of the varieties include:

The story behind the name and label

Tabasco brand pepper sauce is sold in more than 195 countries and territories and is packaged in 36 languages and dialects. The Tabasco bottle is still modeled after the cologne-style bottles used for the first batch of sauce in 1868. As many as 720,000 two-ounce (57 ml) bottles of Tabasco sauce are produced daily at the Tabasco factory on Avery Island.