Fascinating Facts TABASCO®

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  • TABASCO® is the ORIGINAL pepper sauce, and its iconic bottle and diamond label have represented uncompromising quality for over 140 years.
  • McIlhenny Company has been turning out Original TABASCO® Sauce since its founding in 1868.
  • It owes the recipe to family patriarch Edmund McIlhenny who planted the first red pepper plants on Avery Island in the 1860’s. He later invented the famous sauce.
  • Edmund McIlhenny came up with the brand name TABASCO® as his second choice. Some scholars say it’s a Mexican Indian word that means "land where the soil is hot and humid."
  • Original TABASCO® Sauce is made with three simple ingredients: fully-aged red pepper, high quality distilled vinegar, and a small amount of salt mined right on Avery Island. It’s pure pepper sauce—no additives whatsoever.
  • Each 2-ounce bottle of Original TABASCO® Sauce contains at least 720 drops. (There are 60 drops per teaspoon; 3 teaspoons per tablespoon; 2 tablespoons per fluid ounce and 2 fluid ounces per bottle)
  • When all four production lines at the Avery Island factory are in operation, over 700,000 2-ounce bottles of Original TABASCO® Sauce can be made in a single day. 
  • Original TABASCO® brand Pepper Sauce is different from other pepper sauces due to it’s special variety of fully-aged red peppers and the way it’s processed. The pepper mash is allowed to ferment and age for up to three years in white oak barrels, much like fine wine, and every batch is personally inspected for color and aroma by a member of the McIlhenny family before final production.
  • Original TABASCO® brand Pepper Sauce is known and loved throughout the world. It is labeled in 22 different languages and dialects and is distributed in over 160 countries and territories worldwide.
  • Original TABASCO® Sauce should be stored in a cool place away from direct light, such as a cupboard, pantry or cabinet. It doesn’t have to be refrigerated after opening. Once a bottle of sauce is opened, the color may change, but the product won’t spoil. Refrigeration almost always helps to slow this process but isn’t required.
  • Original TABASCO® brand Pepper Sauce has a shelf life of 5 years (opened or unopened) when stored in a cool place, but it’s best if used by the third year.
  • Original TABASCO® Sauce is an all natural product and contains no added gums or artificial colors. As a result, the sauce will occasionally separate depending on the pepper content and pectin levels of the peppers used in sauce production. But don’t worry, separation of ingredients DOES NOT mean the product has gone bad.