Tabasco sauce
Tabasco is the trademarked brand name for a hot pepper sauce that is a well-known table condiment. It is made by McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, Louisiana, from tabasco peppers (Capsicum frutescens var. tabasco), vinegar, and salt, and aged in white oak barrels for three years. (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. Although it is produced in Louisiana, United States, it acquired its name from the state of Tabasco in Mexico. It has a hot, spicy flavor and is popular in many parts of the world.
Production
Varieties
Tabasco has been produced by McIlhenny Company since 1868. Several new types of sauces are now produced under the name Tabasco Sauce, including jalapeño-based green, chipotle-based smoked, habanero, garlic, and "sweet and spicy" sauces.
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 habanero sauce is considerably hotter, rating 7,000-8,000 Scoville units. 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.
Agriculture
The peppers were traditionally grown on Avery Island. While there is a small portion of the crop still grown on the island, the bulk of the crop is now grown in Central and South America, where the weather and the availability of more farmland allow a more predictable and larger year-round supply of peppers. This also helps to ensure the supply of peppers should something happen to the crop at a particular location.
Traditionally, the peppers are hand picked by workers. To tell their ripeness, they are checked with a little red stick, or 'le petit baton rouge' that each worker carries around. Those peppers not matching the color of the stick are not harvested.
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 (free factory tours are available; access to Avery Island requires one dollar toll). These range in size from the common two-ounce and five-ounce (60 and 150 ml) bottles available in most grocery stores, up to a one US gallon (4 liter) jug for food service businesses, and down to a 1/8th-ounce miniature bottle.
Merchandise
In addition, the company has cashed in on its brand name by licensing the production of branded merchandise, including neckties, hand towels, golf shirts, posters, Bloody Mary mix, and even casino slot machines featuring the trademarked diamond logo.
Usage
Foods that contain Tabasco sauce flavor include nuts, popcorn, olives, Slim Jim beef products, mustards, mayonnaises, and 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 US military
Tabasco does not openly advertise its history with the U.S. Military. During the Spanish-American War, John Avery McIlhenny, son of Tabasco's inventor and the second president of McIlhenny Company, served in the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, better known as Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders. His son, Brigadier General Walter S. McIlhenny, USMCR, a World War II veteran and winner of the Navy Cross, presided over McIlhenny Company from 1949 until his death in 1985. During the Vietnam War, General McIlhenny issued the “The Charlie Ration Cookbook.” (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. During the same period, McIlhenny Company issued a new military-oriented cookbook, titled “The Unofficial MRE Cookbook," which it offered free of charge to U.S. Troops. In response to these gestures, service personnel wrote many letters of thanks to McIlhenny Company.
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). Many U.S. troops have returned miniature bottles to McIlhenny Company filled with soil from local camps and bases in Iraq and elsewhere.
McIlhenny Company's relationship with the military extends beyond combat situations. 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 is often used in space, both on the International Space Station and during shuttle missions.
Tabasco in popular culture
In 1909 composer Charles L. Johnson published a tune called "Tobasco Rag Time Waltz" [sic].
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 hit Gigli.