Tabasco - Mexico - HISTORY.com Tabasco A+E Networks Introduction This low, flat state still has a large indigenous population that lives primarily in rural areas. Contrary to popular belief, Tabasco was not named after the spicy peppers of the same name, though the state is a major producer of other farm products, including cacao, coconuts, corn (maize), sugarcane and tropical fruits. The commercial and manufacturing center of the state is Villahermosa. Food processing plants and companies producing wood products, cigars, soap and clothing are located throughout the city. History Early History Beginning around 1500 B.C., the Olmec civilization established itself in Tabasco, reaching its cultural and economic peak around 500 B.C. The Olmecs were noted for their superb stone carvings, which ranged from small, finely detailed jade objects to colossal carved-basalt heads that frequently combined human and jaguar features.

The state was once the location of La Venta, the largest Olmec city, which contained 18,000 inhabitants at its peak between 800 and 500 B.C.Between 100 and 1000 A.D., the Mayans emerged as the dominant culture in the region, followed by the Toltecs in the 13th century. The word Toltec means master builders, and evidence shows that they were brilliantly skilled architects and artists who smelted metals and created highly sophisticated stonework. The Toltec’s polytheistic religion seems to have centered on the god Quetzalcóatl and featured ceremonies that included human sacrifice, sun worship and a sacred ball game. They are believed to have discovered pulque (a fermented drink) and had considerable astronomical knowledge, as shown by their calendar cycle of 52 years of 260 days each. Did You Know? The variety of peppers used in Tabasco sauce (capsicum frutescens) do not actually grow in this Mexican state. In the 14th century, the Chontales appeared in the Tabasco area; historians believe they may have migrated there from Nicaragua.

Chontales is the Mayan name for alien, which is probably the origin of the tribe’s name. Commerce between the Chontales and Mayans led to the development and rise of sizeable cities like Cimatán and Teapa. By 1500 A.D., 135,000 people inhabited the area. In the present-day municipality of Nacajuca, the Chontales represent most of the local population; other Chontales communities are scattered throughout Centla, El Centro, Jonuta and Macuspana. Middle History Spanish explorer Juan de Grijalva’s five-ship expedition in the Caribbean was the first to reach the Tabasco territory in 1518. Soon after, the Spaniards made contact with the Chontales natives who gave them utensils made of gold. The gifts motivated the Spaniards to explore the territory in search of gold mines. A year later, Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés reached the region and successfully defeated the Chontales. A native woman named Malinche became Cortés’ mistress and mother of his son Martín. Malinche learned to speak Spanish and is often accused of providing Cortés with information vital to the defeat of the Aztecs .

Complete conquest of Tabasco by the Spaniards was delayed until the late 16th century due to indigenous uprisings and the Spanish preoccupation with dominating the central valley of Mexico . By the end of the 16th century, however, the native population had dwindled to less than 7,500, and fewer than 100 Spanish colonists remained in the area. As part of an initiative to promote the development of agriculture, the Spanish introduced African slaves into the region. Uprisings by these slaves and the indigenous population over their deplorable living conditions hindered the area’s economic development. New uprisings during the 18th century provoked the Spaniards to increase the slave trade and promote new settlements by colonists. Recent History Mexico’s 1810 independence movement had little effect on the citizens of Tabasco. Nevertheless, the country’s liberation led to the state’s freedom from Spanish rule in 1821. Three years later, Tabasco joined the federation of states. Like the rest of the country, 19th-century Tabasco was characterized by political instability and conflicts between local military leaders. U.S.

troops occupied the region briefly during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), and French troops invaded in 1864 to uphold the appointment of Maximilian I, who had forced Mexico’s President Benito Juárez out of office and declared himself emperor. Liberal forces loyal to Juárez successfully ousted Maximilian in 1867. Tabasco subsequently capitulated to the loyalists, who supported Juárez’s return to the presidency, and later to the supporters of Porfirio Díaz. Díaz gained power through a rebellion against Juárez’s successor and ruled Mexico between 1876 and 1910. The Mexican Revolution , which began in 1910, had little impact on this scarcely populated region. Following the revolution, however, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) exercised overwhelming power in Tabasco for most of the 20th century, especially after large oil fields were discovered in the state. Tabasco Today Largely a rural state and covered in marshland and forest, Tabascans today are primarily involved in agriculture and livestock breeding.

In fact, consumption agriculture–whereby peasants produce enough crops to feed their family needs and supply local markets–still plays an important role in the state. The state’s most prominent crops are corn, beans, sweet potatoes, yucca, squash and rice. In addition, Tabasco produces many export crops including cacao, sugarcane, banana and coconut. Cattle is another important local commodity. The commercial and manufacturing center of the state is Villahermosa. Food processing plants and companies producing wood products, cigars, soap and clothing are located throughout the city. Though tropical agriculture and cattle farming were once the leading economic activities of the state and still play a role, rich oil fields discovered along the coast have since become Tabasco’s economic mainstay. Today, Tabasco is one of Mexico’s main oil-producing zones, and oil is a major factor in the state’s economy and that of the nation as a whole. Large-scale exploitation of this natural resource began after 1950. General service-based companies account for about 21 percent of the state economy.

Trade activities represent about 18 percent, followed by mining at 16 percent, finance and insurance, at 15 percent, construction at 9 percent, transportation and communications at 8 percent, agriculture and livestock at 8 percent and manufacturing at 5 percent. Facts & Figures Major Cities:(population) Centro (558,524), Cárdenas (219,563), Comalcalco (173,773), Huimanguillo (163,462), Macuspana (142,954) Size/Area: 9,755 square miles Myths | McIlhenny Company | TABASCO.com McIlhenny Company Ads Some Common MythsAbout TABASCO® brand Original Red Sauce We have learned that there are a few common myths about our brand’s history that have been repeated so often over the years that many consider them to be fact. So McIlhenny Company has decided to share with die-hard TABASCO® fans and American history buffs alike answers to a number of frequently asked questions regarding the long and often fabled history of TABASCO® brand Original Red Sauce.

Shane Bernard, Ph.D. Historian & Curator Email Maunsel White Did a man named Maunsel White produce a pepper sauce prior to Edmund McIlhenny’s introduction of TABASCO® brand Original Red Sauce? Yes. However, it is untrue that Maunsel White’s sauce was advertised for sale as early as 1853, as some have claimed. In fact, White’s sauce was first advertised for sale, based on current information, in 1864 as “Maunsel White’s Concentrated Essence of Tobasco Pepper”—only four years before Edmund McIlhenny put his TABASCO® brand Original Red Sauce on the market. Does this mean that Maunsel White coined the TABASCO® trademark? No.

Maunsel White died in 1863, a year before his heirs first marketed his sauce, and when they did so, as mentioned above, they used the name “Maunsel White’s Concentrated Essence of Tobasco Pepper.” This product was subsequently referred to and known by the consuming public as “Maunsel White’s.” Therefore, because White’s product was identified by the public using the shorthand designation “Maunsel White’s,” it is doubtful that the White family had any proprietary rights on the word “Tobasco.” In addition, the best information presently available indicates that Maunsel White’s product ceased to be manufactured commercially during the 1870s. Thus, even if White’s heirs claimed rights to “Tobasco,” their failure to use the word beginning in the 1870s would have resulted in what is legally referred to as trademark abandonment. Does history record that Edmund McIlhenny obtained his peppers or pepper sauce recipe from Maunsel White? No. In fact, there is no contemporary historical evidence that Edmund McIlhenny knew Maunsel White, much less that he received his peppers or pepper sauce recipe from Maunsel White.

Furthermore, we know that White’s and McIlhenny’s recipes were different: White’s recipe, descriptions of which appeared in print on at least two occasions, called for boiling his concoction, whereas McIlhenny never boiled his product, but allowed it to ferment. Might Maunsel White’s and Edmund McIlhenny’s peppers been of the same variety? Although it’s possible that White’s and McIlhenny’s peppers were the same variety, it’s also equally possible that their peppers were different varieties of red pepper that merely bore similar names (or different spellings of the same name). It is known, for example, that the words “tobasco” and “tabasco” were used as geographically descriptive terms in the antebellum period to refer to peppers thought to hail from the Tabasco region of Mexico, and that the words did not necessarily refer to one variety. Moreover, during the early 1800s, a spice was exported in large quantities from Mexico and was referred to geographically as “tabasco,” even though the spice in question was obtained from the berry of the myrtle tree (indigenous to the Tabasco region of Mexico), and not made from Capsicum peppers at all.

(This spice is now known in the market as “allspice.”) Thus, the geographic terms “tobasco” and “tabasco” were used quite loosely during the antebellum period. Later, in 1888, Edmund McIlhenny’s pepper was officially recognized by a noted American botanist and is now classified as Capsicum frutescens var. tabasco. The TABASCO® Trademark When was the TABASCO® trademark first registered? It was not until 1905 that Congress passed an act providing for federal registration of trademarks used in commerce between states. This act provided that marks in exclusive lawful use for the ten years preceding the enactment of the statute were entitled to registration. From at least as early as 1880 until the late 1890s, the mark “Tabasco” was in exclusive use by McIlhenny Company to identify its pepper sauce. Consequently, as a result of the public’s association of “Tabasco” with McIlhenny Company as the single source of the product during this period, under the doctrine of secondary meaning, the “Tabasco” trademark was exclusively owned by McIlhenny Company.

Thus, uses by third parties in the late 1890s and early 1900s were infringing and unlawful uses. In fact, John Avery McIlhenny, a former president of McIlhenny Company, signed an affidavit, on the advice of his trademark counsel, stating that—within the meaning of the Trademark Act of 1905—McIlhenny Company was indeed the exclusive lawful user of the Tabasco trademark and entitled to registration of the mark under the 1905 Act. A 1920 decision of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana confirmed the accuracy of John Avery McIlhenny’s affidavit. Does McIlhenny Company have exclusive rights to the trademark “TABASCO®” if “Tabasco” is the name of geographic and political regions in Mexico? Yes. Federal statutes provide and federal courts have held that a geographically descriptive word can be protected as a trademark when that word has acquired a secondary meaning. “Tabasco” acquired a secondary meaning as a trademark as a result of the public’s association of “Tabasco” with a single manufacturer, McIlhenny Company.

Since the early 20th century, federal courts have held, and more recently affirmed, that McIlhenny Company is the exclusive owner of the Tabasco mark. In addition, courts have enjoined the infringing use by others attempting to trade on the goodwill of McIlhenny Company as symbolized by its Tabasco mark. TABASCO® Bottles Did Edmund McIlhenny first bottle TABASCO® Sauce in discarded cologne bottles? According to McIlhenny family lore, Edmund McIlhenny used discarded cologne bottles to distribute his sauce to family and friends prior to marketing it commercially. When in 1868 he decided to sell TABASCO® Sauce to the general public, he ordered thousands of new “cologne bottles” (as Edmund McIlhenny himself referred to them in business correspondence) from a New Orleans glassworks. It was in these new cologne bottles that Edmund McIlhenny first commercially distributed TABASCO® Sauce. Is it true that archaeologists found the oldest known bottle of TABASCO® Sauce while excavating the site of an Old West saloon in Nevada? No.

Although an empty bottle of TABASCO® Sauce dating from the 19th century was indeed excavated on the site of an Old West saloon, it is not the oldest known bottle of TABASCO® Sauce. Earlier bottles have been unearthed on Avery Island, Louisiana, at the site of the original factory that produced TABASCO® Sauce. The Nevada bottle is nonetheless an early bottle of TABASCO® Sauce that reveals much about who was using the product and where they used it during the product’s infancy. Is it true that a factory worker once proposed enlarging the hole in each TABASCO® bottle, so that consumers would use and, hence, buy more sauce? Over the years McIlhenny Company has received many inquiries about this story, which is untrue. Some versions even claim that the factory worker won stock in the family-owned company, having wagered the McIlhennys he could increase sales dramatically at no expense—and did so by enlarging the size of the hole in the TABASCO® bottle. Although this never happened, the story remains a good parable about the value of innovative thinking!

National and International Renown Was TABASCO® Sauce so popular in Europe that Edmund McIlhenny opened a London office in 1872 in order to handle European demand? No. This oft-repeated story is entirely untrue. Edmund McIlhenny did not export any TABASCO® Sauce to Europe until late 1873/early 1874, when he sent only a few dozen bottles to Europe in order to stir interest in the product. He did not begin to export TABASCO® brand Original Red Sauce to Europe in large quantities until several years later. Did General Hazard, a federal administrator in Louisiana during Reconstruction, help introduce TABASCO® Sauce to consumers? Passed down orally for generations, this story appears to be at least partly true. General Hazard did exist (his full name was John Gardiner Hazard), but he retired from military service before moving to Louisiana to work as a cotton broker and commission merchant. Regardless, it seems likely that General Hazard did have a role, as lore maintains, in introducing TABASCO® Sauce to his cousin, wholesale grocer E. C. Hazard, who helped to popularize the condiment in major Northeastern markets.

On the other hand, two historical figures other than General Hazard are known to have recommended TABASCO® Sauce to E. C. Hazard—namely, Edmund McIlhenny’s brother-in-law, John Marsh Avery, and McIlhenny’s sole TABASCO® sales agent, former Union soldier Major John C. Henshaw. Indeed, it was Henshaw who actually succeeded in convincing the wholesaler to distribute TABASCO® Sauce. Ultimately, however, the extent of General Hazard’s role in introducing TABASCO® Sauce to E. C. Hazard remains unclear. E. A. McIlhenny and the Nutria Was former McIlhenny Company President E. A. McIlhenny (1872-1949) the first person to import the South American nutria rat to Louisiana or to North America in general? No, E. A. McIlhenny was at least the third nutria farmer in Louisiana. Moreover, he never imported his nutria from abroad, but obtained them from a pre-existing nutria farm below New Orleans.

Regardless, McIlhenny did have a role in the animal’s proliferation, founding a nutria farm on Avery Island in 1938—a business operation unassociated with his duties as President of McIlhenny Company. Although it has often been said that his nutria escaped from their pens during a hurricane, McIlhenny intentionally freed a large number of nutria into the South Louisiana wild to bolster the local fur industry. It is important to note that as early as 1930, the State of Louisiana had encouraged nutria farming among its citizens, and in the mid-1940s, the State announced its intention to release nutria into a state-managed wildlife area near the mouth of the Mississippi River. The McIlhenny Family Was Philadelphia art collector and philanthropist Henry McIlhenny a member of the McIlhenny family that makes TABASCO® Sauce? Henry McIlhenny was not a member of the McIlhenny family that makes TABASCO® Sauce. He was, however, a friend of McIlhenny Company president Walter S. McIlhenny, who once visited Henry’s castle, Glenveagh, in County Donegal, Ireland.

Despite the absence of a genealogical link, Walter and Henry referred to each other jokingly as “cousin” and kept up a correspondence for many years. Alcademics.com Cocktails, spirits, bars, and bartenders: Alcademics is the study of booze with beverage journalist Camper English. August 21, 2012 This spring I went to Avery Island, Louisiana, to see how Tabasco pepper sauce is made. Avery Island isn't really an island, but more of a dry mound (a salt dome) surrounded by wetlands. It's about 165 feet high and that makes it the tallest point in the Gulf Coast. The island is owned entirely by the Avery family, of which the McIlhennys form a branch. The first of them on the island was a man named Marsh, who built the Marsh House in 1818 that is still used for family weddings and other gatherings. Marsh wasn't a pepper sauce maker, but grew sugar cane on the part of the island that he owned. There are remains of three sugar refineries still on the island, and sugar cane is still grown in the surrounding area.

Marsh's son-in-law, who was an Avery, bought the rest of the island. This Avery's daughter married a McIlhenny, so that's where the families come together. And it was this McIlhenny who invented Tabasco sauce. At some point, they discovered that the island was rich in salt deposits. Salt is still mined on the island by the Cargill company, and they've now drilled to 2000 feet below ground to do so. Every night, they detonate an explosive underground to ready some more salt for harvest, and sometimes you can hear the boom from the Marsh House. During the Civil War, the families fled New Orleans to live on the island and escape the conflict. But armies need salt, for preservatives and for animals, so the war soon came to them. They were making salt for the Confederate army and the Union army tried to seize the island in a conflict that came to be known as "The Great Salt Expedition." Though this was a victory for the Confederates, the Union won the island just six months later. After the Civil War, Edmund McIlhenny, a banker whose industry had been destroyed by the conflict, succeeded in his venture creating a pepper sauce.

(It wasn't the first pepper sauce in America, though they were not common. It was said people initially complained that the sauce was too hot, as they applied it in quantities like the ketchup they were used to.) He grew peppers and developed the recipe from 1866-1868, and sold his first Tabasco sauce in 1869. Unlike most brands who tout their recipe as being identical to the original, Tabasco has definitely changed. Initially, the pepper mash was aged for 30 days in jars, then vinegar was added and it aged for another 30 days. Tabasco Today Today, Tabasco sauce is a global business, but all of it still originates and is processed on the island. The seeds for all the peppers grown for Tabasco originate on the island, picked from the best plants, then peppers used in the sauce are grown in Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.

Around the world the peppers are all hand-picked, ground up, have eight percent salt added (in South America, the salt they use is actually sent from Avery Island), and then the peppers ferment for a month before they're shipped back to Avery Island. Back on the island, the "pepper mash" is aged in ex-bourbon barrels- about 50,000 of them here at the warehouse. The barrels are first de-charred and re-hooped, as the acidity of the mash would eat right through the typical barrel hoops. The pepper mash then ages in a barrel for three years on Avery island, stacked six-high on top of each other. Not only is there salt used in the pepper mash, salt is added on top of each barrel. The barrels have a valve on top that releases carbon dioxide from the fermenting peppers, and it bubbles through the salt. When the fermentation is done, the salt forms a hard rock salt puck on top of the barrel, helping to seal the valve. The three-year-old pepper mash is then added to vinegar and aged for up to 28 days before bottling. Peppers make up about twenty percent of the final product.

The actual peppers register from 40,000 to 50,000 on the Scoville scale , but after aging and dilution the final Tabasco sauce is around 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville heat units. Inside the warehouse, we were able to taste the pepper mash- just putting a bit on our tongues and then spitting it out. As expected, it's hot as heck. But as a reward for doing so, we are given a necklace with a spoon attached, engraved with N.S.A.O. N.S.S.S. - allowing us membership into the The Not So Ancient Order of the Not So Silver Spoon. My fellow Tabasco taster Amy Sherman made an illustration of me undergoing the initiation. After they make the Tabasco sauce, the spent peppers are sold to a pharmaceutical company that makes things like pepper spray and medicinal applications. Types of Tabasco The main line of Tabasco sauces now includes the Original, Green (jalapeno, the first sauce extension from 1993), Chipotle, Buffalo, Habanero, Garlic Pepper, and Sweet & Spicy.

But a trip to the gift shop on Avery Island shows just how many other brand extensions there are: Tabasco has hundreds of products it co-brands with, including A1 steak sauce, Hormel Chili, Cheez-Its, Slim Jims, and SPAM. They're all there, along with Tabasco-branded clothing and accessories and just about everything you can put a logo on. They also sell some other sauces not available everywhere, like a Raspberry Chipotle and a Family Reserve that's aged up to eight years. They always seem to keep experimenting, and we got to try some prototype sauces. So yeah, it turns out that Tabasco pepper sauce, something we see practically every day and never think about, actually has a fascinating history, production process, and global reach, all from this little island in the Louisiana bayou. Posted at 08:50 AM in mixers , trips | Permalink | Comments (38) | | Tabasco Pepper Sauce, Whats Cooking America 0 0 Tabasco Pepper Sauce is a condiment that is a spicy hot sauce made from Tabasco peppers, vinegar, and salt. The hot peppers are picked by hand as soon as they ripen to the perfect shade of bright red.

The same day the peppers are picked, they are mashed, mixed with a small amount of Avery Island salt, placed in white oak wooden barrels, and allowed to ferment and then age for up to three years. When deemed ready by a member of the McIlhenny family, the approved, fully aged mash is then blended with all natural, high grain vinegar. Numerous stirrings and about four weeks later, the pepper skins and seeds are strained out. The finished sauce is then bottled. Avery Island is not really an island – it is a huge dome of rock salt, three miles long and two and a half miles wide. At it’s highest point it is only 152 feet above sea level. It is located seven miles south of New Iberia, surrounded by wet marsh and the Bayou Peiti Anse. It is one of five along the Louisiana Gulf Coast, formed when an ancient seabed evaporated, depositing pure salt, which rose up in large chunks and pushed the ground into a hill. Long before its namesake Avery family settled there in the 1830s, American Indians discovered that Avery Island’s verdant flora covered a precious natural resource—a massive salt dome.

There the Indians boiled the Island’s briny spring water to extract salt, which they traded to other tribes as far away as central Texas, Arkansas, and Ohio. 19th Century 1850s – Edmund McIlhenny (1815-1890), a New Orleans banker, was given a gift by a soldier returning to New Orleans from Mexico of some dried peppers that were acquired in Mexico during the United States-Mexican War (1846-1848). The soldier told him to try them in his food. He used one or two and like it, so he saved the seeds from the remaining peppers and planted them. He grew them in his wife’s garden at Avery Island. McIlhenny did not raise them commercially for another twenty years. 1863 – In April of 1863, during the Civil War (1861-1865), Edmund McIlhenny fled with his wife when the Union Army entered the city. They took refuge on Avery Island in rural Iberia Parish, where her family owned a salt-mining business.

Because of the salt on the island, the Union forces invaded the island and captured the mines in 1863. The McIlhennys fled to Texas and did not return until the end of the war. The area that would became Iberia Parish was hotly contested by Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War. Their battle lines moved back and forth through the area, and Union troops twice looted the town. They also seized the Weeks family mansion, now called “Shadows-on-the-Teche,” and used it as a command post — but not before it, too, was looted. As a Union officer noted: “the boys were allowed to go through it, sack, pillage and destroy every article within its walls.” When the McIlhenny family came back, they found their plantation ruined and their mansion plundered. One possession remained, a crop of capsicum hot peppers. 1868 – Determined to turn the peppers into income, he devised a spicy sauce using vinegar, Avery Island salt, and chopped capsicum peppers. McIlhenny packaged his aged sauce in 350 used cologne bottles and sent them as samples to likely wholesalers.

He passed some of his sauce onto General Hazard, who was the federal administrator in the region. The general knew a good thing when he tasted it. His brother happened to be the larges wholesale grocer in the United States. General Hazard sent some of the hot sauce to his brother in New York, and told him it was made from a new kind of chili pepper. On the strength of the purchase orders that followed, Edmund McIlhenny began a commercial operation in 1868. At first he wanted to call this new sauce Petite Anse Sauce (after the island), but when family members did not like the commercial use of the family’s island name, he opted for his second choice “Tabasco.” Some historians say it is a Central American Indian word that means “land where the soil is hot and humid.” This certainly describes the climate of Avery Island. Other historians have put forth that it actually means “place of coral or oyster shell.” 1870 – McIlhenny secured a patent Pepper Sauce. In 1872, he opened an office in London to handle the European market.

Bottles with metal tops replaced the corked bottles sealed with green wax as the increasing demand for Tabasco sauce caused changes in the packaging. 1893 – Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Club produced a play called “Burlesque Opera of Tabasco” with the approval of Edmund McIlhenny’s son, John Avery McIlhenny. He bought the rights to the production and had it staged in New York City. 1895 – Lord Horatio Herbert Kitcherner’s (1850-1916), British Field Marshal and statesman, troops brought Tabasco pepper sauce on their invasion of Khartoum in the Sudan. 20th Century 1906 – In 1898, another Louisiana entrepreneur (and former McIlhenny employee) named B. F. Trappey began growing tabasco chiles from Avery Island seed. He founded the company B. F. Trappey and Sons and began producing his own sauce, which was also called “Tabasco.” The McIlhenny family eventually responded to this challenge and a several decades-long feud by receiving a trademark for their Tabasco brand in 1906.

1920s – In 1921, an American bartender in Paris, Fernand “Pete” Petiot, mixed up some vodka and tomato juice. According to legend, Petiot said, “It was suggested we call the drink ‘Bloody Mary’ because it reminded him of the Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago, and a girl there named Mary.” In 1934, Petiot brought the drink to the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. It was in New York that he added pepper, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, lemon, lime and horseradish. Petiot pushed his tomato-based drink as a hangover cure. Born the Bucket of Blood, the drink was later called Red Snapper and Morning Glory before finally being christened Bloody Mary, supposedly after American entertainer George Jessel accidentally spilled one of the crimson beverages over a young woman named Mary. 1929 – In 1929, Trappey’s expanded to two plants, one in Lafayette and one in New Iberia. That same year, the McIlhenny family won a trademark infringement suit against the Trappeys.

From that time on, only the McIlhenny sauce could be called “Tabasco,” and competitors were reduced to merely including tabasco chiles in their list of ingredients. The two companies had competed with identically named sauces for thirty-one years. 1932 – When the British government began an isolationist “Buy British” campaign, Parliament banned the purchases of Tabasco Pepper Sauce, popular in England since 1868 and available in the House of Commons dining rooms. The result protest from members of Parliament was dubbed “The Tabasco Tempest,” and inevitably Tabasco pepper sauce returned to parliamentary tables. It is said, that to this day, Queen Elizabeth uses Tabasco pepper sauce on her lobster cocktail. 1966 to 1972 – Vietnam War Brig. Gen. Walter S.

McIlhenny, son of the 2nd company president of McIlhenny Company, from his experiences with C-Rations as a soldier during WWII came up with the idea to send soldiers copies of the Charley Ration Cookbook filled with recipes for spicing up C-rations with Tabasco Pepper Sauce, The book was wrapped around two-ounce bottles of Tabasco Pepper Sauce along with a handful of a P-38 type can openers all in a waterproof canister. During the Vietnam War (1966 to 1972), the McIlhenny Company sent thousands of copies of the Tabisco’s Charley Ration Cookbook, filled with recipes for spicing up C-rations with Tabasco pepper sauce, wrapped around two-ounce bottles of Tabasco pepper sauce in waterproof canisters? 21st Century 2002 – Archaeologists digging at the site of a black-owned saloon in the historic Old West mining town of Virginia City unearthed a 130-year-old bottle of Tabasco brand hot sauce.

The bottle, the oldest style of Tabasco bottle known to exist, was reconstructed from 21 shards of glass excavated from beneath the site of the Boston Saloon, which was owned by an African-American from Massachusetts and catered to blacks and whites from 1864-75, was among the first eateries to introduce the now-popular spicy sauce. The Tabasco bottle is particularly intriguing because of what it implies about African-American cuisine and the development of the West,” said Kelly Dixon, the administrator of the Comstock Archaeology Center who is supervising the dig in Virginia City about 20 miles southeast of Reno. About McIlhenny Company | TABASCO.com Go McIlhenny Company Family-Owned & Operated TABASCO® brand products are made by McIlhenny Company, founded in 1868 on Avery Island, Louisiana. To this day, the company is still family-owned and operated on that very same site. Sowing the Seeds According to family tradition, TABASCO® brand Original Red Sauce was created in the mid to late 1860s by Edmund McIlhenny.

A food lover and avid gardener, McIlhenny was given seeds of Capsicum frutescens peppers that had come from Mexico or Central America. On Avery Island in South Louisiana, he sowed the seeds, nurtured the plants and delighted in the spicy flavor of the peppers they bore. The Birth of a Pepper Sauce The diet of the Reconstruction South was bland and monotonous, especially by Louisiana standards. So Edmund McIlhenny decided to create a pepper sauce to give the food some spice and flavor — some excitement. Selecting and crushing the reddest peppers from his plants, he mixed them with Avery Island salt and aged this “mash” for 30 days in crockery jars and barrels. McIlhenny then blended the mash with French white wine vinegar and aged the mixture for at least another 30 days. After straining it, he transferred the sauce to small cologne-type bottles with sprinkler fitments, which he then corked and sealed in green wax. (The sprinkler fitment was important because his pepper sauce was concentrated and best used when sprinkled, not poured.) “That Famous Sauce Mr. McIlhenny Makes” “That Famous Sauce Mr.

McIlhenny Makes” proved so popular with family and friends that McIlhenny, previously a banker, decided to embark on a new business venture by marketing his pepper sauce. He grew his first commercial pepper crop in 1868. The next year, he sent out 658 bottles of sauce at one dollar apiece wholesale to grocers around the Gulf Coast, particularly in New Orleans. He labeled it “Tabasco,” a word of Mexican Indian origin believed to mean “place where the soil is humid” or “place of the coral or oyster shell.” McIlhenny secured a patent in 1870, and TABASCO® Sauce began its journey to set the culinary world on fire. Sales grew, and by the late 1870s, he sold his sauce throughout the U.S. and even in England. Still Made the Same Way Over 140 years later, TABASCO® Sauce is made much the same way except now the aging process for the mash is longer – up to three years in white oak barrels – and the vinegar is high-quality distilled vinegar.

Labeled in 22 languages and dialects, sold in over 180 countries and territories, added to soldiers’ rations and put on restaurant tables around the globe, it is the most famous, most preferred pepper sauce in the world. Five Generations Later TABASCO® Sauce is still made on Avery Island, Louisiana, to this day. In fact, about half of the company’s 200 employees actually live on Avery Island, with many of their parents and grandparents having worked and lived there as well. Anthony “Tony” Simmons, the current President and CEO, is the seventh McIlhenny in a chain of direct descendants who have strived to preserve the legacy and traditions of the company’s creator. A collection of antique bottles used for various TABASCO® brand products. Turistic sites in Tabasco, Mexico | VisitMexico Listen Sparsely populated and wedged between the states of Veracruz and Campeche along the steamy Gulf of Mexico, the State of Tabasco is known for its wide rivers, deep lagoons and as a headquarters for Mexico’s oil industry.

Tabasco attracts few foreign tourists, despite offering all the modern amenities you'd expect in its capital city of Villahermosa, and a fascinating array of cultural attractions and outdoor pursuits. It has enjoyed anonymity as a tourist destination, yet has set in place a number of programs and facilities to begin hosting visitors like never before. Measuring a mere 330 by 195 kilometers, the state is known for its high levels of humidity and the wetlands and intense tropical greenery that result. Several large rivers (including the mighty Usumacinta and Grijalva) drain from nearby mountains and tropical jungle into the Gulf of Mexico. Flat coastal plains give way to undulating foothills that eventually rise to become the Sierra Madre de Chiapas mountain range. Lagoons, estuaries and marshes dominate the landscape. In fact, during the peak of the rainy season (September-October), nearly half the state is covered by water! Not surprisingly, Tabasco is home to over 2,200 plant species, some fabulous eco parks, and one of Mexico’s most delightfully untamed biosphere reserves.

Tabasco’s 190 kilometers of coastline has no resort development, but boasts several charming seaside villages spread along estuaries, salt marshes and lagoons – worth a visit if you've a taste for the rustic rather than the all-inclusive. Some of Tabasco's many inland attractions include stunning archaeological sites, sprawling cacao plantations, quaint colonial towns, and the revitalized state capital city of Villahermosa. Tabasco may be one of Mexico’s smallest states, but it is also one of its wealthiest. Its fertile plains support abundant year-round agriculture, while vast offshore oil fields bring waves of foreign and Mexican business travelers. This has created an air of relative prosperity in Tabasco, especially in the outlying districts of Villahermosa. Humid and warm all year round, the state’s climate can be extreme (heavy rains from May-October; more temperate climate December-March), so do come prepared – insect repellent is a must! In defiance of these conditions, Mesoamerica’s earliest civilization – the Olmecs – thrived along Tabasco’s western border with Veracruz.

Settling around 1500 B.C., the Olmec people developed Mexico’s first non-nomadic culture, while the Maya came to settle later among the highlands of neighboring Chiapas. Both cultures built great ceremonial centers that, to this day, are counted among Mexico’s most treasured archaeological sites. Interestingly, Tabasco served as the “border” between the Mayan and Aztec empires, handling trade and other relations between the two cultures. As such, Mexico’s three major indigenous cultures have influenced the region’s unique development, and the presence of all three can be felt in the state's complex historical character. Today, the two largest indigenous groups are the Chontals (Mayans) and the Zoques. The Chontals have occupied this region for some 2,000 years and are heirs to the ancient Chontal Maya legacy. They preserve ancient traditions and lifestyles which can be witnessed in their communities even today. They reside in western and central Tabasco, living in small and self-sufficient fishing, cacao and ranching communities. The Zoques, the State’s second largest group, are direct descendants of the Olmecs.

A few communities survive today, mostly in far western Tabasco, preserving many typically Olmec cultural traditions. Visitors can use Villahermosa as a convenient base for exploring the state. It's home to a whole range of modern hotels, U.S.-style shopping malls, and a host of interesting museums and cultural centers (most with English signage, so you won't have to stretch your Spanish skills too far). One of Mexico’s most fascinating zoological and archaeological parks, La Venta, is located here, along with glorious boat rides along the Grijalva River, and the unique Yumka safari park – unmissable if you're traveling with kids. Tabasco state synonyms, Tabasco state antonyms - FreeThesaurus.com Tabasco state synonyms, Tabasco state antonyms - FreeThesaurus.com Also found in: Dictionary , Encyclopedia , Wikipedia . noun a Mexican state on the Gulf of Campeche Related Words very spicy sauce (trade name Tabasco) made from fully-aged red peppers Synonyms Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us , add a link to this page, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content . Link to this page: Write what you mean clearly and correctly.

References in periodicals archive ? Available WNV strains from Mexico indicate that the murine-attenuated, E-156 glycosylation-negative variant identified in Tabasco state may be limited in its distribution to southern Mexico, while the glycosylated variant typical of US strains is widespread in northern Mexico. 19 ARRESTED IN MEXICO OIL PROTEST It's because of the arrests of the PRD mayors who are linked to organized crime or involved in acts of corruption, such as the politicians in Iguala, Guerrero, San Luis Potosi, and Chiapas," said the daily newspaper Diario de la Tarde, based in Villahermosa, Tabasco state. Arrest of mayor on charges of embezzlement, illicit enrichment another black eye for center-left P.R.D Mexico City, Jumada II 7, 1433, Apr 28, 2012, SPA -- Four children who vanished on their way to primary school have been discovered suffocated and buried on a ranch not far from their homes in southern Mexico, according to Tabasco state authorities.

Four Missing Children Found Suffocated in Mexico MEXICO CITY -- A slow recount and claims of fraud have clouded the outcome of a closely watched gubernatorial race in Tabasco state that was expected to greatly influence the direction of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in the wake of its loss of power at the national level. Tabasco Sauce Glossary | Recipes with Tabasco Sauce | Tarladalal.com Tabasco Sauce Glossary | Recipes with Tabasco Sauce | Tarladalal.com Viewed 19323 times tobasco sauce Description A condiment that is a spicy hot sauce made from Tabasco peppers, vinegar, and salt. The hot peppers are picked by hand as soon as they ripen to the perfect shade of bright red. The same day the peppers are picked, they are mashed, mixed with a small amount of Avery Island salt, placed in white oak wooden barrels, and allowed to ferment and then age for up to three years, producing a fiery sauce that's highly concentrated and rich in flavor. The fully aged mash is then blended with all natural, high grain vinegar. Numerous stirrings and about four weeks later, the pepper skins and seeds are strained out. The finished sauce is then bottled.

The name refers to a very hot, small red Chile that originated in the Mexican state of Tabasco. How to Select In addition to the original, you will also find a variety of Tabasco sauces made from different peppers. Each of these offers a different level of heat. Milder sauces include Tabasco's Sweet & Spicy and Green Pepper sauces. Garlic Pepper and Chipotle Pepper varieties fall in the mid-range, while Tabasco's original and Habanero sauces are the hottest. Hence buy as per the taste and verify on the manufacturing date. Culinary Uses · Tabasco can add zest to a wide variety of recipes and it's a key ingredient in the popular Bloody Mary cocktail. Make a Bloody Mary by combining one quart of tomato juice, one cup of vodka, one table spoon of lemon juice, one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, one teaspoon of salt, and one-quarter teaspoon of Tabasco pepper sauce in a two-quart pitcher. The drink should then be stirred well, chilled, served with ice, and garnished with a slice of lime. · Tabasco sauce is widely used to season a variety of foods, such as sandwiches, salads, burgers, pasta, French fries, cheese fries, pizza, and even mashed potatoes.

· Add to your favorite barbecue, curry and pasta sauces. · Sprinkle on tacos, fajitas and burritos. · Zip up cheese and bean dips. · Whisk into hearty chowders, stews and soups. · Use in ethnic dishes - Cajun, Caribbean, Mexican, Asian and African. · Sprinkle on pizza and foccacia · Highly concentrated, Tabasco should be used more sparingly than other pepper sauces. The degree to which you use Tabasco depends on your individual taste. Play it safe by starting with a drop or two and work your way up. · Use it as a "by the drop" condiment for pizza or as a spicy finishing touch to salads, seafood dishes and creamy soups like clam chowder. How to Store Tabasco has a shelf life of five years when stored in a cool, dry place. Over time, artificial light, sunlight or extreme hot or cold temperatures may cause the sauce to darken. The sauce may also separate. Neither of these indicates the sauce has gone bad. Just give the bottle a good shake. Health Benefits · Get rid of a cold by mixing ten to twenty drops of Tabasco pepper sauce into a glass of tomato juice.

Drinking several glasses of this mixture daily will help relieve congestion in the sinuses, nose, and lungs. You can also gargle this mixture to help clear the passage way of the respiratory tract. · Relieve a toothache by applying a dab of Tabasco pepper sauce to the gum area. · Make a Cola Volcano by mixing one or two drops of Tabasco pepper sauce into a glass of Coca-Cola, stirring well, and adding ice. · Make spicy popcorn by adding a few drops of Tabasco pepper sauce to the cooking oil before adding the popcorn kernels. Try Recipes using Tabasco Sauce

Question: The state of Tabasco, where the sauce gets its name, is in which country?
Answer: Mexico