What is Tabasco? Here’s Everything You Need to Know About This Hot Sauce Made in U.S.

Produced and patented more than 150 years ago by the American company McIlhenny Company, Tabasco has a history and preparation that are simple and extraordinary at the same time, just like its flavor, spicy and strong. Tabasco is a sauce much loved here, in the United States that in recent years can be found easily even abroad. But what is it really and how can we enjoy it at its best? Where does this very particular sauce come from and what is it really made of? Here is everything you need to know: history, recipe and curiosities about this sauce that you will never stop using.

How to Use Tabasco

Tabasco, due to its more or less light spiciness and its acidic aftertaste given by the presence of vinegar, can be used in different recipes and in different ways. Certainly widely used to season mixed salads or to flavor steaks and cuts of meat perhaps cooked on the grill, it is also used to enrich sandwiches and rolls. Tabasco is also used in the world of alcoholic beverages: have you ever heard of the Bloody Mary? This cocktail is so special precisely because of the presence of a few drops of Tabasco!

How is Tabasco Made

Tabasco is a spicy sauce derived from the processing of the homonymous chili pepper of the Capsicum frutescens species. Tabasco was produced and patented for the first time in 1870 by the American company McIlhenny, which still jealously guards the recipe and is the only producer. Tabasco is made up of only chili peppers, salt and vinegar: the chili peppers are collected and processed with salt, placed in enormous oak barrels and left to rest for 3 years. After the maturation time, the liquid is filtered to eliminate the peels and seeds of the chili peppers and mixed with vinegar. After 30 days, Tabasco is ready to be bottled and sold all over the world!

Different Types of Tabasco

In addition to the original recipe, over the years the manufacturing company has developed various recipes and alternatives based on the desired level of spiciness. The variants are Tabasco Habanero sauce, definitely the spiciest, widely used for meat and fish but not suitable for the most delicate palates; Tabasco Jalapeño sauce or Tabasco Verde, with a more moderate spiciness; Chipotle with a garlic flavor and a smoky aroma; Buffalo, very well known in Europe and, lastly, Sweet Spicy, the least spicy of all.

History and Curiosities

The name Tabasco probably comes from a state in Mexico where the Capsicum frutescens chili pepper plantation used to produce the sauce is thought to originate. Tabasco is produced along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in a very particular territory that develops on an underground deposit of salt, a geological composition that certainly has its impact on the growth of the plantations.

To make sure that the chili peppers are ready to be picked and processed, red wooden sticks are used, when the chili peppers have the same color as the stick then they are ripe and it is time to pick! One last curiosity: Tabasco is included in the list of things supplied to the American army, in fact in the USA Tabasco is used on everything!