Tabasco

Species: Capsicum frutescens | Origin: Mexico | Pungency: Hot

Tabasco is probably one of the most famous chilli varieties in the world due to being the one used by the McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, Southern Louisiana, since 1868 to make the famous Tabasco® Original Red Pepper Sauce. Although nowadays synonymous with the famous American hot sauce by the same name, the Tabasco chilli doesn't originate from the United States but from the Mexican state of Tabasco, one of the 31 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. Officially named Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco, the state covers 9,549 square miles and is located in the southeast of the country. With its 17 municipalities and capital city of Villahermosa, the state of Tabasco is bordered by the states of Campeche, Veracruz, Chiapas and the Petén department of Guatemala.

The plants have a fairly tall upright growth habit and produce excellent yields of upright growing, tapered chillies which start light green and ripen through yellow, several shades of orange and then to bright red. All colour stages of the ripening process are sometimes visible at the same time, making this variety a very attractive colour display. The plants can grow to about four feet in height when in pots, but much taller when in the ground. It is an easy variety to grow, and when fully ripe the fruit starts to turn soft and falls away from the calyx very easily (deciduous). Tabasco chillies have a good flavour and a sharp heat and are great for spicing up soups, stews, sauces, salsas, rice dishes and curries. They also dry very easily and make a very tasty power. The word 'Tabasco' is of Mexican Indian origin and is believed to mean 'place where the soil is humid' or 'place of the coral or oyster shell'.

Tabasco® chilli sauce is without doubt the most famous hot sauce in the world. It is made by the McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, Southern Louisiana, a company which was created over 150 years ago by Edmund McIlhenny, a man of Irish and Scottish decent. Even today, the company is still family owned and operated on the very same island. Tabasco® Original Red Pepper Sauce is made from distilled vinegar, Tabasco chillies and salt. The pepper mash is aged for up to three years in white oak barrels and the sauce is now sold in over 195 countries and territories around the world. According to the McIlhenny Company's official history page, Edmund McIlhenny was a food lover and keen gardener. He was given seeds of a Capsicum frutescens chilli which had either come from Mexico or Central America and he sowed the seeds on Avery Island.

McIlhenny grew his first commercial chilli pepper crop in 1868, and the following year he sent out 658 bottles of sauce at one dollar apiece wholesale to grocers around the Gulf Coast, particularly in New Orleans. He labelled it 'Tabasco', a word of Mexican Indian origin. McIlhenny secured a patent in 1870, and Tabasco® Sauce began its journey from there. By the late 1870's, his fiery concoction was being sold throughout the United States and even in Europe. Today, over 150 years later, the ingredients and the process by which the sauce is produced remain virtually unchanged!

Page published on: 31st December 2022