Tabasco Sauce

Tabasco is a hot sauce that is, at its basic, made from tabasco peppers, salt, and vinegar. The original sauce was invented in the 1860s by Edmund McIlhenny. He acquired the seeds of Capsicum frutescens peppers from Mexico or Central America and planted them on Avery Island in Louisiana.

He crushed the reddest peppers, mixed them with salt, and aged the concoction for 30 days in barrels and jars. Later on, he combined the ingredients with white vinegar and aged the whole thing for another 30 days. McIlhenny named the sauce after a Mexican Indian word tabasco, meaning a place where the soil is humid, marketed it, and patented it in 1870.

The sales skyrocketed and Tabasco sauce was sold throughout the USA and England. Today, it is still made on Avery Island and it remains the most famous pepper sauce in the world. There are many versions of the sauce such as Green Tabasco, Chipotle, Buffalo, Habanero, Garlic Pepper, and Sweet & Spicy.

It has numerous uses, so it can be sprinkled over pizza or pasta, drizzled on nachos, hot dogs, and hamburgers, or stirred into different dips and salsas.