Hello!
Today we're going to talk about Tabasco sauce that can spice up everyday foods like eggs,
potatoes, sandwiches and more.
To do this, just add a couple of drops of this hot sauce.
It is usually served with Mexican dishes such as nachos, tacos and burritos.
This is what the original red Tabasco sauce looked like years before it hit the grocery
store.
For over 150 years, the famous red pepper Tabasco sauce has been produced on a small
plot of land surrounded by a bay in South Louisiana, on Avery Island.
Tabasco brand sauces are produced by the American company McIlEnnie.
The production of red pepper sauce began in 1868.
The sauce was the result of numerous and lengthy experiments by Edmund McIllenny, the owner
of a small Avery Island estate in the salt mines in Louisiana.
To prepare his sauce, Edmund McIlEnnie used a special variety of red pepper - Tabasco,
salt from a local mine and high quality vinegar.
Since then, the company has remained under family control.
Each new CEO was a descendant of McIlenny.
And although Tabasco peppers were originally grown only on Avery Island, they are now grown
mainly in Central and South America, as well as in Africa.
150 years ago, hot sauce was out of fashion.
Tabasco laid the foundation for the recognition of the sauce as it is known today.
The recipe used to make this famous sauce has hardly changed since 1868: distilled vinegar,
red pepper and salt.
Tabasco, as a sauce, has truly revolutionized the way Americans think about sauces.
Its concentrated flavor was able to enliven even the tasteless diet common in much of
the American South at the time.
The revolution also affected its standardization, production and distribution.
Probably, many people understand how difficult it is to grow a quality product in a constantly
changing weather.
Many people love Tabasco, but they have no idea that it takes 3 years to produce the
sauce.
Today there are many opportunities for the company to be able to save on some ingredients.
This is what the Tabasco capsicum variety on Avery Island looks like, which has been
grown for 150 years by the descendants of the MacIlennies.
Edmund McIlEnnie grew tiny red peppers for the first time on Avery Island.
He bottled his first hot sauce in 1868, sealed them with wax, and sold just under 700 bottles
throughout the Gulf Coast.
This bottle cost $1.
He named his brand TABASCO, after the Mexican state famous for the production and export
of spices.
Edmund received a patent for it, and by the early 1870s, he was selling his bottles throughout
America and even Europe.
The business flourished and gained momentum.
Sauce was sold more and more.
Today, one factory can produce as much sauce in 24 hours as Edmund made in his entire life.
Edmund McIlennie lived on Avery Island, which is a natural salt dome rising 50 meters above
sea level.
This is the highest point on the entire US Gulf Coast, which helped to withstand hurricanes.
But today the coast of Louisiana sinks a third of an inch every year.
For example, between 1985 and 2010, the state lost approximately one wetland football field
each year.
And when the land sinks, it is more vulnerable to storm damage.
Today, people are fighting to protect their land.
The factory is surrounded by drying marshes, making it vulnerable to hurricanes.
The company has already spent millions of dollars protecting the island from storms.
In this greenhouse, Tabasco peppers are grown only for seed production.
Here the plants with the most intense red pepper color are selected, with the ideal
size and then the taste.
Such plants are labeled and collected separately for distribution.
It is also important to prevent the appearance of aphids.
The primary goal of plant growing operations on Avery Island is to produce quality pepper
seeds.
From here, the highest quality seeds, which make up only 1% of all grown on the island,
are sent to more than 1000 Tabasco farms around the world.
Until the 1960s, pepper was grown only on Avery Island, then it was distributed throughout
Louisiana, and subsequently plantations appeared in Mexico and Venezuela, and finally around
the world.
The Tabasco pepper comes from the Amazon region of South America.
It is about 6 times hotter than the Mexican Jalapeno pepper and is tiny, only 1 to 1.5
inches long.
A pod weighs 1 gram.
Because the pepper is so small, it can be easily damaged.
Therefore, harvesting machines are not used.
All work on the cultivation and collection of peppers is carried out exclusively by hand.
Pickers use a red stick or "le petit baton rouge" to evaluate the fruits of bright peppers
for ripeness.
If the pepper matches the color of the stick, then it is harvested, if not, then it remains
on the plant.
This, of course, is laborious, but only in this way will peppers of the highest quality
be guaranteed.
More than 4.5 thousand tons of pepper are collected on Tabasco plantations per year.
This is filmed in Louisiana, but the process of growing peppers looks the same on all farms.
Harvested peppers are sprinkled with salt and then, using a giant machine, they are
turned into a paste.
Farms around the world ship pasta back to Avery Island for processing via the Port of
New Orleans.
For example, the puree in this container is actually made in Peru.
Inside the container is more than 23 tons of Tabasco puree.
This pump pumps the paste into white oak barrels.
Some of them are already 60 years old.
Most of them used to hold bourbon.
Why white oak barrels are used is not known exactly, but it has been working for over
150 years and therefore there is no need to change anything.
A well-coordinated team works to
fill and seal the barrels, where everyone knows their place.
One truck holds up to 110 barrels.
Drums must not be overfilled, as too much pressure can rip off the lids of the drums
overnight.
Therefore, it is easiest to transfer the excess to an adjacent container.
It may take about 30 minutes to fill one barrel.
Because the barrels are old, they don't have a perfect seal.
Therefore, workers from above sprinkle them with salt.
This allows gases to escape, and oxidation slows down.
We can say that the salt on top is just an additional protective layer.
If there is a small defect on the lid that is not visible, then the salt gets stuck in
it and acts as a seal.
Barrels are sealed and sent for 3 years to the aging warehouse.
The team stacks each barrel based on the origin of the puree.
Here is such a bay, running far along the wall, contains about 1,100 barrels or 175,000
liters of Colombian puree.
And this warehouse stores 55,000 barrels.
This is the future of tabasco.
Each barrel yields 10,000 2-ounce bottles of Tabasco.
During fermentation, a lot of gases come out of the puree.
Therefore, a tiny valve on top of the barrel allows you to relieve excess pressure.
If there is no such ventilation during the fermentation process, the barrels may explode.
And this happens sometimes.
After three years, the puree inside the barrels stabilizes, it thickens and becomes darker.
This is easy to detect if you look at the fill level of the barrel, you can immediately
see that the level has dropped.
On the rings on the barrel you can see how the wort descended.
And although the volume has decreased, this aged puree is still very spicy.
It should be remembered that at this stage the puree is 10 times hotter than the real
sauce.
Next, the aged puree is pumped into the mixing chamber.
If you open such a container, then the pungent smell of pepper hits right in the throat.
The workers joke that they are beaten with this smell every day.
Employees make sure that all sauces taste the same, even if they come from different
parts of the world.
Peppers from different countries are mixed, so it can be composed of peppers from Colombia,
Peru, Ecuador and Honduras.
Vinegar is added to the finished puree and aged, stirring it all for another 28 days.
This mixing takes place simultaneously in seventy-two tanks.
Available filters remove the pulp and seeds of the pepper.
As a result, what was once pungent and pungent is now aromatic with a mild complex flavor.
The sauce does not require any cooking because the vinegar acts as a natural preservative.
During aging, samples of the sauce are sent to the laboratory to check the pH - an indicator
of acidity.
Also check its viscosity, salt level and other criteria.
Lab technicians also do taste tests.
After receiving approval, the finished Tabasco sauce is pumped to the bottling shop.
The sauce factory fills up to 700,000 bottles a day, from miniature bottles to iconic 5
oz bottles.
The company uses glass rather than plastic as it is the best barrier to infiltrating
oxygen.
Oxygen negatively affects the taste and color of the sauce.
Under the name "Tabasco" nine varieties of sauce are produced.
From original red to habanero.
Much of the filling, capping and labeling today is done by machines.
The entire cycle takes one bottle 13 minutes.
At the end, the bottles are brought together and packed in cartons.
This happens very quickly - about 300 bottles per minute.
As a rule, all freshly packaged products leave the warehouse within three weeks.
The shipping company delivers products to Germany, Japan, Sweden, Taiwan, the Canary
Islands and South Africa.
And now some interesting facts.
It is known that in 2009 Tabasco received a royal warrant from the Queen of Great Britain
after it was found that American hot sauce was used regularly enough within the walls
of Buckingham Palace to deserve this honor.
In the 1970s, it was sent to astronauts to add spice and flavor to astronauts' boring,
freeze-dried food, and since the 1980s, it has been included in US Army diets.
Tabasco is used and distributed in more countries than McDonald's.
It can be found in over 195 countries and territories around the world.
Its labels are printed in 25 different languages of the world.
That's all.
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