The McIlhenny Company has made Tabasco sauce using the same recipe since 1868: red peppers, vinegar, and salt. Since the hot sauce is aged in bourbon barrels, it takes five years to fill just one bottle. And most of this process still happens where it all began: Avery Island, Louisiana. Six generations of McIlhennys have lived on the island. But with disappearing marshes and more intense storms along the coast, the family is fighting to protect their, and the hot sauce's, home.
I took a tour a whole bunch of years ago, very interesting and definitely opens up the nasal passages..
ReplyDeleteJD
DId you get free samples to take home?
DeleteTabasco was for sure the first hot sauce I ever had and I can guarantee you there will be a bottle in the refrigerator the day I die. I don't ever recall being out of Tabasco.
Yes we did.... Being it's only about an hour and half drive away I should go back and do another tour just because..
DeleteJD
Post Katrina they had a crew floating the bourbon barrels out to a crane that was loading them onto a flatbed. Not all of them maintained their seal integrity. It brought a tear to your eyes.
ReplyDeletehttps://adage.com/video/tabasco-mosquito/
ReplyDeleteWiscoDave
Tobasco isn't the best selling hot sauce in Louisiana. It's Chrystals, which is really good too, but Tobasco it is the ONLY choice for bloody marys...
ReplyDeleteI've got Chrystals in my refrigerator too. Matter of fact, I've got about half of a door rack that's nothing but hot sauces and salsas, with spares in the pantry.
DeleteIs Lisa still shaking her head about that ? 👍
DeleteJD
Yeah, but it's safe from her. She knows if a single bottle or jar goes missing I'll know it.
DeleteSaw a video years ago about how the atmosphere there would make a brand new fork lift look ten years old and rusted in a matter of months because of yhe gasses coming out of those barrels.
ReplyDelete-lg
Built a house for the owner of Tabasco, up in Cashiers in the late it's. He told us everyone who worked on his house would be invited to a big BBQ, get a nice logo hat and a gift set of various Tabasco Sauce flavors. It never happened. Guy was a real piece of work, but his wife was nice as anyone you'd ever want to meet.
ReplyDeleteAbout 40 some-odd years ago I was taking flying lessons out of the New Iberia airport (elevation: 27 feet above sea level). On one of my flights I passed over Avery Island at approx 2000 feet. Yes, I could smell, taste, and feel in my eyes the Tabasco Sauce vapors wafting above the island.
ReplyDelete-Barry
Tabasco- making MREs palatable for decades.😁
ReplyDeleteAnd C-Rations before that.
DeleteI don't know for the life of me why they didn't include a mini bottle in C-Rats like they do MREs.
Simple, at the time they didn't have the smaller bottles, and Ed Mcilhenny was still in the Marine Corps. He's the one that started that whole mini-bottle/MRE thing.
DeleteMy Dad included a well wrapped bottle of Tobasco in every care package sent when I was deployed.
DeleteA few decades ago, I checked a book on hot peppers out of my local library. One of the chapters was on the history of Tabasco. In the early days of the company, the guy who started the company was known for traveling to major cities in the US, and asking for Tabasco sauce in every restaurant he ate in. If they gave him anything other than his Tabasco sauce, he'd sue them.
ReplyDeleteGood old Avery Island Ambrosia!
ReplyDelete--Tennessee Budd