Tabasco sauce

McIlhenny Company

Type	Private (family-owned)
Industry	Food processing
Founded	1868; 149 years ago (1868)
Founder	Edmund McIlhenny
Headquarters	Avery Island, Louisiana, United States
Products	Hot Pepper sauce and other condiments
Number of employees	About 200 (per company web site, August 2014)
Heat	Medium
Scoville scale	3,500–8,000 SHU
Website	www.tabasco.com

Tabasco sauce is a brand of hot sauce made exclusively from tabasco peppers, (Capsicum frutescens var. tabasco) vinegar and salt. It is produced by the McIlhenny Company of Louisiana.

Although the name comes from the Mexican state Tabasco, the sauce is an American product produced by the McIlhenny Company. Tabasco sauce was formulated in Mexico by a Mexican company called "Salsa Mexicana" (Mexican Sauce), and was later bought by Edmund Mclhenny in 1868 and brought to the United States.

Tabasco sauce was first produced in 1868 by Edmund McIlhenny, a Maryland-born former banker who moved to Louisiana around 1840. McIlhenny initially used discarded cologne bottles to distribute his sauce to family and friends. In 1868 when he started to sell to the public he ordered thousands of new cologne bottles from a New Orleans glassworks. On his death in 1890, McIlhenny was succeeded by his eldest son, John Avery McIlhenny, who expanded and modernized the business, but resigned after only a few years in order to join Theodore Roosevelt's 1st US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders.

On John's departure, brother Edward Avery McIlhenny, a self-taught naturalist fresh from an Arctic adventure, assumed control of the company and also focused on expansion and modernization, running the business from 1898 until his death in 1949.

Walter S. McIlhenny in turn succeeded his uncle Edward Avery McIlhenny, serving as president of McIlhenny Company from 1949 until his death in 1985. Previously, Walter had served in the U.S. Marines during World War II, fighting at Guadalcanal and two other major battles.