It All Begins On Avery Island

TABASCO® Sauce is made from three natural ingredients: mashed red peppers aged in white oak barrels, a small amount of salt and high quality vinegar.

The peppers used in producing TABASCO® Sauce are heirloom red peppers that have been protected for nearly a century and a half by the McIlhenny family.

The peppers are planted in early spring and harvested from August through October on Avery Island, Louisiana*. It’s one of the most colourful times of the year as the pepper fields turn from a sea of green to a landscape peppered with rich, ripened red peppers.

During the harvest season, the peppers are picked by hand to ensure that only the finest peppers are selected. The harvested peppers are primarily used for seed stock. The seeds are so valuable that they are stored in a locked vault on Avery Island.

The day the peppers are picked, they are mashed with a small amount of salt. This mixture is called “new mash” and is sent back to where it all began on Avery Island.

The new mash is enclosed inside the barrels, a thick layer of salt is added on top of the barrel lid to make an air tight seal. This keeps out any oxygen. (New mash is up to 10x times hotter than the final sauce.)

The McIlhenny Company ages its red pepper mash in white oak barrels for up to three years. We are the only pepper sauce company to age its mash for this length of time.

The aging process is what makes TABASCO® Sauce so unique for its influence on the flavour. The flavours evolve and mature as the red pepper mash ages, giving TABASCO® Sauce its signature flavour.

Each batch of red pepper mash is inspected by a McIlhenny family member before becoming TABASCO® Sauce.

Once approved, the mash is mixed with vinegar for 28 days, then strained, removing the seeds, skin and pulp.

The result is a pepper sauce that awakens and enlivens the flavours of foods, never masking them.

It is then bottled and shipped to more than 185 countries and territories around the world and labelled in 22 different languages and dialects.

Edmund McIlhenny

Founder, McIlhenny Company

Edmund McIlhenny is the founder of McIlhenny Company. He developed the recipe for TABASCO® Original Red Pepper Sauce that is still used today.

After years of experimenting with red peppers, vinegar and salt from his wife’s ancestral home on Avery Island, Edmund grew his first commercial crop of red peppers in 1868. The next year he sent out 658 bottles of sauce with hand applied labels and a green wax seal to grocers around the Gulf Coast, particularly in New Orleans. It was at that time that the legacy of a nearly 150-year-old family-owned business was born.

Anthony Avery Simmons

President and Chief Executive Officer, McIlhenny Company

Anthony Avery (Tony) Simmons is the great-great-grandson of Edmund McIlhenny. He is a member of the fifth generation of the McIlhenny family involved in the production of TABASCO® Brand products and the seventh family member to assume company leadership.

Harold G. Osborn, III

Senior Vice President, McIlhenny Company

Harold G. Osborn, III represents the fifth generation of the McIlhenny family involved in the production of TABASCO® Brand products and he lives and breathes the brand.

Mr. Osborn is responsible for international sales and the TABASCO® Brand’s ever-growing presence around the globe. He manages the making of the sauces, new product development and sustainability efforts.