How Does Tabasco Sauce Work?

Tabasco brand hot sauce is the most popular in the U.S., and it's been made pretty much the same way for 150 years. Learn more in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tabasco-sauce-red-stick.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Hey brain Stuff Lauren Bobibon here. The Tabasco Company was
founded in eighteen sixty eight in the rural community of
Avery Island in southern Louisiana. New Orleans. Banker Edmund mcilenny
used pepper plants of the Tabasco variety that's botanical name
capsicum for tescans, abrought from Latin America. Those peppers make

(00:26):
Tabasco a little hotter than most other table sauces, which
are generally made from cayenne peppers, a varietal of the
species capsicumb annum, and which are medium hot. A capsicum
for tescans peppers are hot hot. Mcilenny called his creation
Tabasco Pepper Sauce, patenting the name. The hot sauce quickly
gained popularity in America and Europe in the eighteen seventies

(00:48):
thanks to the recipes that the company created to use
with the sauce. It's now an important part of Louisiana's
famous cuisines, added to all kinds of savory dishes, sauces, dressings,
and even sweet eats like jelly beans and chocolate. Relatives
of the Maclonny families still round the company, and their
share of the U S Hot sauce market is now
seventeen point one percent, which is the largest in the country.

(01:10):
They produce seventy five thousand bottles a day, but the
pepper sauce production process has remained relatively unchanged over the
last hundred and fifty years. The field hands who originally
worked on Avery Island used what's known as le petipaon rouge,
or a little red stick to determine the Tabasca peppers ripeness.
The pepper had to match the color of the deep

(01:31):
red paint on the stick in order to be picked. Surprisingly,
despite technological advancement, the company still uses the sticks, as
workers still pick peppers by hand. So far, a machine
has not been developed that can make that determination on ripeness.
Versions of the red sticks are sold in Tabasca's gift
shop too. Once the ripe peppers have been selected, they're

(01:52):
mashed and barrel aged for up to three years in
white oak barrels sourced from Bourbon distilleries. Nowadays, most of
the peppers are grown in parts of South and Central
America and Africa, but the pepper seeds all come from
Avery Island. These are then shipped overseas for growing. After
they're harvested, the peppers are ground, mixed with salt into
a paste, and shipped back to the island. Avery's abundant

(02:16):
natural salt reserves come in handy then, as a thick
layer of salt is placed on top of each sealed barrel.
The salt helps prevent microbial growth while the product ages.
This pepper mash is a whopping ten times hotter than
Tabasco's completed sauce. Each batch of mash is inspected by
a member of the maclenny family to confirm that the

(02:36):
color and aroma are just right. After the aging process,
the mash is mixed with vinegar and churned for about
three weeks. Then the liquid is strained and poured into bottles.
The flagship variety of the sauce berries in heat, usually
between two thousand, five hundred and five thousand Scoville units,
which is a measure of spice level. As of this recording,
the brand cells eight total varieties, including Haban, narrow Chipotle,

(02:59):
and Taracha, some of which may be hotter. Tabasco has
also been a part of military rations around the globe
and served to everyone from members of the British Royal
family to NASA astronauts. As of two thousand nine, at
any rate, mclennie was the only non British food company
that has a Royal warrant, meaning that Tabasco is the
official hot sauce of the Queen. You can also find

(03:22):
it on Air Force one and Yes on the International
Space Station. Today's episode is based on the article it
Wouldn't be Tabasco Sauce without the Red Stick on how
stuff works dot Com, written by Caroline you Banks. Brain
Stuff is production of iHeart Radio in partnership with how
stuff Works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Clang.

(03:44):
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