Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Tabasco sauce
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| McIlhenny Company | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | Private (family-owned) |
| Founded | 1868 |
| Founder | Edmund McIlhenny |
| Headquarters |   Avery Island, Louisiana, United States |
| Industry | Food processing |
| Products | pepper sauce and other condiments |
| Revenue | Unknown |
| Employees | About 200 (2007) |
| Website | www.TABASCO.com |
Tabasco sauce is a brand of hot sauce made from tabasco peppers (Capsicum frutescens var. tabasco), vinegar, and salt, and aged in white oak barrels for three years. It has a hot, spicy flavor and is popular in many parts of the world.
Tabasco is trademarked as the brand name for the variety of tabasco sauce marketed by one of the United States' biggest makers of hot sauce, the McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, Louisiana.[1] Often, the word "tabasco" is rendered in lowercase when referring to the botanical variety, but in uppercase, "Tabasco," when referring to the actual trademarked brand name. While there are many other kinds on the market, Tabasco is the most famous brand of "hot pepper sauce". Although it is produced in the United States, it acquired its name from the state of Tabasco in Mexico.
The McIlhenny Company is now in its fifth generation as a family-run business. All of the 145 shareholders either inherited their stock or were given it from another living family member.[1]
Contents |
Born in 1815 in Hagerstown, Maryland, Edmund McIlhenny moved around 1840 to Louisiana, where he worked as a banker. When he was ruined financially by the American Civil War, he began manufacturing a hot sauce probably inspired by an earlier sauce introduced by New Orleans-era entrepreneur Maunsel White.
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.
In 1870 McIlhenny obtained letters patent for his invention, which he packaged in cork-top two-ounce bottles with diamond logo labels very similar in appearance to those in present-day use.
McIlhenny first 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.
McIlhenny died in 1890, but he did not consider the creation of Tabasco sauce to be one of his major accomplishments. At the end of his long life, Edmund McIlhenny wrote out a sketch of what he would be remembered for; Tabasco sauce was omitted from the list.[2]
After Edmund McIlhenny died, his family expanded production and modernized the company's business practices. By the early 1900s, Tabasco was known throughout the U.S. and in many places of the world, and had practically become synonymous with hot pepper sauce. By the late 1800s and early 1900s it could be found throughout Europe, as well as in India, China, Egypt, west Africa, and elsewhere.[3]
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. In the 1980s, however, McIlhenny Company changed the place of manufacture to read "Avery Island."
In the 1990s, the bulk of the tabasco pepper farming was outsourced to several Latin American farms, with the island providing the seed stock at the beginning of every growing season.
The McIlhenny family company makes money from more than just Tabasco sauce, mining rock salt, pumping oil and natural gas, and operating Jungle Gardens, a botanical garden. They also reuse many of their manufacturing byproducts, from selling their used oak barrels to selling the seed mash to a company for use in candles.
Until recently, all of the peppers were grown on Avery Island. While a small portion of the crop is 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. All of the seeds are still grown on Avery Island.
Following company tradition, the peppers are hand picked by workers. To tell their ripeness, peppers are checked with a little red stick, or 'le petit bâton rouge' that each worker carries around. Those peppers not matching the color of the stick are not harvested. Harvested peppers are shipped back to the Island factory. Peppers are ground into mash, and salt and vinegar are added. The mixture is put into old white oak whiskey barrels from distilleries to age for up to three years. The bright red mash is so corrosive that forklifts are reported to last only six years.[1] Three giant mixing vats at the factory hold more hot sauce than Edmund McIlhenny brewed in his entire lifetime. A single mixing vat contains about 3,000 pounds of mash and 1,400 gallons of vinegar. One vat can produce about 1,600 gallons of finished sauce."[2]
Avery Island was hit hard by tropical storms in 2005, especially Hurricane Rita. The factory barely escaped major damage[1] As a result of a long history of dodging tropical storms, the family plans to spend $5 million on constructing a 17-foot levee and a back-up generator.
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. McIlhenny also produces a Tabasco soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce.
The habanero sauce and garlic sauces both include the tabasco peppers blended with other peppers, whereas the jalapeño variety does not include tabasco peppers.
None of these products undergo the three-year aging process the flagship product uses.
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 chipotle sauce, which adds chipotle pepper to the original sauce, measures 2,000-2,500. 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. Their Sweet and Spicy sauce is the mildest at only 100-600 Scoville Units.
Tabasco brand pepper sauce is sold in more than 160 countries and territories and is packaged in 22 languages and dialects. As many as 720,000 two-ounce bottles of Tabasco[1] sauce are produced each day at the Tabasco factory on Avery Island, Louisiana. Free factory tours are available; access to Avery Island requires a one dollar toll. These bottles range in size from the common two-ounce and five-ounce (57 and 150 ml) bottles available in most grocery stores, up to a one US gallon (3.8 liter) jug for food service businesses, and down to a 1/8th-ounce (3.7 ml) miniature bottle. McDonalds used these diminutive Tabasco bottles during early McRib promotions as well as used by the military to liven up the food entrees in the Meals Ready to Eat (MREs).
In addition, the company has cashed in on its brand name by licensing the production of branded merchandise, including neckties, hand towels, golf shirts, boxer shorts, posters, Bloody Mary mix, and even casino slot machines featuring the trademarked diamond logo.
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, barbecue 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 Spam, Slim Jim beef sticks, Heinz ketchup, A1 steak sauce, Plochman's mustard, Cheez-It crackers, Lawry's salt, Zapp's potato chips and Vlasic pickles.
Tabasco sauce has a shelf life of five years when stored in a cool and dry place.
Tabasco sauce is widely used to season a variety of foods, such as sandwiches, salads, burgers, pasta, pork chops, scrambled eggs, pizza, and even mashed potatoes.
The hot sauce is shipped to 160 countries and territories around the world.
| This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2007) |
Tabasco does not openly advertise its history with the U.S. Armed Forces. 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 Stauffer McIlhenny, USMCR, a World War II veteran and recipient of the Navy Cross, presided over McIlhenny Company from 1949 until his death in 1985. During the Vietnam War, BGen. McIlhenny issued the The Charlie Ration Cookbook. (Charlie ration was 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."[2]
It is included in MREs ("Meals Ready to Eat"). 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 using characters from the comic strip Beetle Bailey, 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.[citation needed] Some soldiers used the bottles to make chess sets.[citation needed] Many U.S. troops have returned miniature bottles to McIlhenny Company filled with soil from local camps and bases in Iraq and elsewhere.[citation needed]
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.
Walter Stauffer McIlhenny was a benefactor of the Marine Military Academy. As a result, a bottle of Tabasco sauce can be found on every table in the school's mess hall. McIlhenny was a member of the Academy's General H. M. Smith Foundation, and the school named one of its buildings after him.
It is on the official menu of the space shuttle.[2] 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.
- 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). (Oddly enough, it was not featured in Live and Let Die (1973), which took place in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana.)
- Ben Affleck reads aloud the back label of a Tabasco sauce bottle in the 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. It is commonly used by Internet satirist Maddox,[4] and by other smaller websites.[citation needed]
- 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. The Tabasco sauce is portrayed as so strong that it actually corrodes the iron bars in the jail cell's windows.
- Used as an ingredient for a very unusual candy invented by Alvin Fernald in the Alvin series of children's books by Clifford B. Hicks.
- The Hanna-Barbera cartoon movie Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998) takes place in the swamps of south Louisiana on an island on which peppers are grown — clearly a reference to Avery Island, Louisiana, where Tabasco sauce is manufactured. Interestingly, a chef-sized bottle of Tabasco sauce appears in the opening minutes of the live-action major motion picture Scooby Doo (2002).
- ^ a b c d e Shevory, Kristina. "The Fiery Family," Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2007, p. B1.
- ^ a b c d "TABASCO's Hot History," Morning Edition, National Public Radio (NPR), 29 November 2002.
- ^ Kurlansky, Mark. Salt: A World History. Walker & Company: 2002. ISBN 0802713734
- ^ http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=tabasco
Categories: Articles needing additional references from February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since November 2007 | Articles with unsourced statements since December 2007 | 1868 establishments | Hot sauces | Brand name condiments | Louisiana cuisine | Military food of the United States | Companies based in Louisiana