On a salt dome in the middle of the Louisiana marshes stands a warehouse full of oak barrels. Inside them a mash of crushed peppers and salt ferments its way through three years before anyone even mentions bottles. What comes out is used a few drops at a time, and that is plenty.
The expert's description
Tabasco sauce 57 ml McIlhenny Company is a hot sauce from Avery Island in Louisiana, made from tabasco peppers, salt and vinegar and aged in oak barrels for up to three years, filled into a 57 ml bottle.
McIlhenny Company has made the sauce on the same island since 1868, when Edmund McIlhenny filled his first batch into discarded perfume bottles. The recipe has barely moved since. The peppers are picked by hand and compared against a painted wooden stick, le petit bâton rouge, so that only fruit of the right red shade goes forward.
The peppers are crushed the same day and mixed with salt from the island's own salt dome. That mixture goes into white oak barrels, the lid is covered with a layer of salt, and then it is left alone. Over three years the raw sharpness of the chilli settles into something deeper and more fermented, and only afterwards is the mash blended with vinegar and strained.
The heat sits between 2,500 and 5,000 on the Scoville scale, which is moderate by modern standards. The acidity, on the other hand, is pronounced, and it is that combination of salt, acid and warmth that makes the sauce useful in everything from a Bloody Mary to a slow-cooked stew. The 57 ml bottle is the small classic format with a dasher top.
Tasting notes
Nose
Sharp vinegar first, hitting straight up the nose, and behind it a fermented, almost pickled pepper aroma. There is a trace of dried fruit and wood from the barrels that only shows if you give it a moment.
Palate
Salt and acid land immediately and set the mouth watering. Then the chilli heat arrives, dry and direct, with no sweetness to soften it. Underneath sits the fermented depth from the barrel ageing, which is why the sauce tastes of more than simply heat.
Finish
The warmth stays longest, spread evenly across the tongue rather than concentrated in the throat. The acidity lifts quickly and leaves a salty, peppery tone that flatters rich food and cold drinks equally.
Specifications
Name: Tabasco sauce 57 ml McIlhenny Company
Producer: McIlhenny Company
Region/Country: Avery Island, Louisiana, USA
Type: Hot sauce
Size: 57 ML
Ingredients: Distilled vinegar, red chilli pepper and salt
Serving suggestion: A few drops in a Bloody Mary, on fresh oysters or in a stew built on dark spirits
Flavour profile
Sharp · Tangy · Salty · Barrel-aged
Did you know?
Avery Island is not an island in the ordinary sense but the top of an enormous salt dome pushing up through the marsh. Salt from that very deposit goes into the pepper mash and is also used to seal the barrels while the sauce ages.
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