Claudia Romeo: Hello! Today we're in the West Midlands
of England, in Worcestershire, the home of Lea & Perrins.
We're going to see how they make
their famous Worcestershire sauce.
Today we're going to find out about
its history and origin,
what makes it so popular here in the UK,
and then, of course, we're going to taste it.
Worcestershire sauce is a condiment made through
a long-established maturing process
with malt and spirit vinegar, molasses, red onions,
garlic, anchovies, tamarind, and secret seasoning.
The sauce can be enjoyed in a variety of ways.
Use to complement steaks, burgers,
cocktails such as a Bloody Mary,
and a British favorite, cheese on toast.
But how did this famous sauce come into existence
here in the West Midlands?
Nigel Dickie: So, Lea & Perrins is steeped
in over 180 years of history.
You know, the story starts in 1835
with Lord Sandys, who was reputably
a nobleman of this county.
And he'd been traveling in the Far East
and had picked up this recipe for a sauce.
And he loved it so much
he brought it back to Worcester
and wanted it made up.
He turned to a couple of entrepreneur chemists,
Mr. Lea and Mr. Perrins,
who owned a chemist shop
in the center of Worcester in Broad Street.
So, he gave them the recipe,
and Mr. Lea and Mr. Perrins got the ingredients
from around the world and made up the sauce.
And you know what?
It tasted awful.
Lord Sandys never returned,
and Mr. Lea and Mr. Perrins put this mixture
in the basement of their chemist shop
and didn't return to it until a couple years afterwards.
When they tried it and it had matured
into this wonderful elixir,
and so started the, kind of,
global fame of Lea & Perrins
into what it is today.
Claudia: After discovering their newfound popular sauce,
the pair began selling it
from their Broad Street chemist,
which was quickly becoming popular
with locals in the area.
Lea & Perrins then relocated
to a new factory in Worcester in 1897,
where the sauce is still made today.
Depending on your region,
it will either be packaged
in the iconic orange label
or wrapped in a beige paper wrapper.
Paul Nicholls: So, at the site here in Worcester we do
mainly Lea & Perrins production in glass bottles.
70% to 80% of what we do is Lea & Perrins,
so quite a lot of volume, and also we produce
around about 43 million bottles a year.
So depending on the bottle size that we're running
at the time, we can run anything from
2 1/2 tonnes an hour up to 5 and 6 tonnes per hour
in terms of production of sauce.
Claudia: Paul escorted us around the factory,
showing us the making process.
We started in the basement,
where hundreds of barrels sit quietly,
maturing the Worcestershire sauce ingredients
just like it did over 100 years ago.
Paul starts by showing us one of the three
main ingredients that go into Lea & Perrins sauce,
whole red onions.
Paul: So, we got some red onions here that have been
pickling for around about 9 to 10 months,
and we've still got the whole red skin onion,
which we've noticed, but it's changed from
being a very hard fruit,
even though it's keeping its color,
to being a little bit mushy,
and it's the process of breaking down the vegetable
that creates this lovely juice that comes out
that will give us that lovely flavor.
Claudia: The same process is also done with
whole garlic cloves,
which also sit in a barrel of malt vinegar
to pickle for 18 months.
One of the most interesting ingredients sitting
in these barrels are anchovies,
and there are lots of them.
The fish, which are captured and sent from Spain,
age in 200 kilograms of salt for 2 years,
which help bring out the base flavor for the sauce.
After the ingredients have finished maturing,
they then go to the making house,
where they are mixed together.
The garlic, onions, anchovies, and salt are added
into this 5,000-liter tank.
It then goes to the maturation storage area,
where the ingredients are transferred and held
in a larger, 30,000-liter tank
for a minimum of six weeks,
adding more ingredients, including their secret spices,
further enhancing the maturing process.
Once complete, the sauce then goes
to the final stage, where it gets pasteurized.
The sauce first goes through this holding tank
before heading to the heat exchanger,
which preheats the sauce for around two minutes,
then cools it again, before sending it to bottling.
It's finally time to try the Worcestershire sauce.
One thing to keep in mind is that
this sauce is basically everything that I hate.
I'm not a big of vinegar, anchovies, garlic, onions,
and all these strong, strong flavors.
I think the winning point in here is that
you don't taste the fish. I could never tell
that there is fish in here.
I can taste the vinegar
and the garlic and the onions.
You know, like, if you compare this to, like,
the standard vinegar that you have on the market,
this will taste more like a balsamic vinegar
because it has some sweet notes.
I have made a very sad-looking cheese on toast,
so what we've done here is we put a little bit of
the Lea & Perrins sauce just on top of the cheese
before putting this onto the grill.
Oh, yeah, there is sauce in here.
I think this one is a very good option.
The sauce actually elevates it.
So, overall, not for me,
but it's still a great sauce.