A red sauce rich in chillies and hot red peppers, originating in the Mexican state of Tabasco. It is made from the fruit of the plant Capsicum frutescens, and is used to flavour soups, stews, and other hot dishes.
Tabasco is the trademarked brand name for a hot pepper sauce that is a well-known table condiment. (The word "tabasco" is rendered in lowercase when referring to the botanical variety, but in uppercase, "Tabasco," when referring to the actual trademarked brandname.) There are many other kinds of "hot pepper sauce" on the market, most of them similar to Tabasco, but Tabasco is by far the most famous.
Following this advice, McIlhenny grew his first crop of commercial tabasco peppers on Avery Island in 1868, and he sold his first sauce made from this crop in 1869.
At first McIlhenny sold his sauce primarily along the Gulf Coast of the southern U.S., particularly in New Orleans, the nearest major city. By the mid-1870s he had introduced Tabasco sauce to most major U.S. cities, and by the end of the decade he was exporting the product to Europe and elsewhere in limited quantities. By the early 1900s Tabasco was known throughout the U.S. and beyond, and had practically become synonymous with pepper sauce.
Production
Varieties
Tabasco has been produced by McIlhenny Company since 1868.
The habanero sauce and garlic sauces both include the tabasco peppers blended with other peppers, whereas the jalapeño variety does not include tabasco peppers.
Heat
The original, classic red variety of Tabasco pepper sauce measures 2,500-5,000 SHU on the Scoville scale. The garlic variety, which blends milder peppers in with the tabasco peppers, rates 1,200-1,800 Scovilles, and the green pepper (jalapeño) sauce is even milder at 600-800 Scovilles.
Packaging
Tabasco brand pepper sauce is sold in more than 160 countries and territories and is packaged in 22 languages and dialects. More than 700,000 bottles of Tabasco sauce are produced each day at the Tabasco factory on Avery Island, Louisiana.
Usage
McIlhenny Company now produces numerous Tabasco brand products that contain pepper seasoning, including popcorn, nuts, olives, mayonnaise, mustard, steak sauce, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, grilling/marinating sauce, bar-b-que sauce, chili sauce, pepper jelly, and Bloody Mary mix. McIlhenny Company also permits other brands to use and advertise Tabasco sauce as an ingredient in their products, including Slim Jim beef sticks, Heinz ketchup, A1 steak sauce, Plochman's mustard, Cheez-It crackers, Lawry's salt, and Vlasic pickles.
Tabasco sauce has a shelf life of five years when stored in a cool and dry place.
In Korea, Japan, Austria, Israel, Pakistan, Germany, Norway, Finland and parts of Canada, Tabasco sauce is popular on pizza.
Tabasco and the U.S. military
Tabasco does not openly advertise its history with the U.S. military. (Charlie ration is slang for the field meal given to troops.) This cookbook came wrapped around a two-ounce bottle of Tabasco sauce in a camouflaged, water-resistant container. It included instructions on how to mix C-rations to make such tasty concoctions as “Combat Canapés” or “Breast of Chicken under Bullets.”
During the 1980s, the U.S. military began to include miniature bottles of Tabasco sauce in its MREs. Eventually, miniature bottles of Tabasco sauce were included in two-thirds of all MRE menus.
Most recently, U.S. troops in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom used miniature Tabasco bottles to decorate their Christmas trees. Some soldiers used the bottles to make chess sets, while others in the field put Tabasco sauce in their eyes to stay awake while on sentry duty (a use that is not recommended by the manufacturer). The U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps list over 400 mess halls that offer Tabasco sauce on their tables. In fact, Tabasco sauce is found on the table of every Officer's Mess in the Marine Corps.
Tabasco in space
Through NASA's relation to the US Military, Tabasco has found its way into the space program. Tabasco Sauce was used on Skylab by NASA to address astronauts' complaints about bland rations.
Tabasco in popular culture
In 1909 composer Charles L.
An early style bottle of Tabasco sauce is briefly seen in the film Back to the Future Part III (1990) as an ingredient of a mix used to wake Doctor Emmett Brown from a drunken stupor.
Charlie Chaplin uses a Tabasco sauce bottle as a comedic prop in his 1917 movie The Immigrant.
In Apocalypse Now (1979) the character Chef can be seen sprinkling Tabasco sauce into a meal he is making on the boat.
Tabasco sauce appears in two James Bond movies: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
Ben Affleck reads aloud the back label of a Tabasco sauce bottle in the notorious 2003 movie Gigli.
On Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 1, Episode 3, "Porno Gil") a male porn star claims that Tabasco sauce kept him aroused during a prolonged shoot.
Tabasco sauce has become an Internet Meme as a symbol for manliness.
Turn-of-the-20th-century baseball player Norman Elberfeld was known as "The Tabasco Kid" because of his fiery temper.
The aliens on television series Roswell use Tabasco on almost everything they eat.
In an issue of the Lucky Luke comic book, Billy the Kid uses Tabasco sauce to escape from a Mexican jail cell.
Trivia
The place of manufacture on Tabasco bottles originally read "New Iberia, Louisiana," because in the nineteenth-century New Iberia had been the closest shipping hub to the Tabasco factory on Avery Island.
Archaeologist Howard Carter had Tabasco sauce on hand in the Valley of the Kings when he excavated King Tut's tomb in 1922.
Explorers found a bottle of Tabasco sauce in the wreckage of the USS Macon rigid frame airship that crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1935.
User Comments Add a comment…