Head to the McIlhenny factory on Avery Island, Louisiana, where the world's supply of Tabasco sauce is made. Follow along and learn how 150-year-old family run business, and the Tabasco-making process, from pepper to barrel to bottle.

 

INGREDIENTS (Original red sauce)

• Distilled vinegar
• Red pepper
• Salt

Scoville Rating: 2500 - 5000

Technology

The pepper seeds are made on Avery Island. Then they’re shipped to farms in Latin America. The farmers wait for the peppers to ripen. Then they’re ground up and combined with salt. This “mash” goes back to Avery Island. It then ages in these barrels for three years. Each barrel yields around 10,000 bottles of Tabasco sauce.

Three years later … It’s time to make some sauce!

The mash is mixed with vinegar for three weeks. Then, the mix is strained to remove seeds and skin. Here comes the sauce! Time to bottle it up! The design is based on a 19th-century cologne bottle.

 

 

The bottles are filled, capped, and labeled. Then they’re boxed up and prepped for shipping. Tabasco sauce is shipped to 195 countries. The factory produces around 700,000 bottles per day. This is only one week’s worth of inventory