International hot sauce brings the world home 

The restaurant on Avery Island marks the year of Tabasco’s beginning — 1868. Edmund McIlhenny harvested his first tabasco pepper crop from which he created a piquant sauce to enliven the flavors in foods for family and friends.

The creation of this simple sauce unwittingly changed the way the world eats forever. Today, 150 years later, the same three ingredients that made his TABASCO® Sauce — tabasco peppers, salt and vinegar — are aged and bottled by Edmund’s family on Avery Island, the process virtually unchanged.

What has changed is the number of offspring from the original sauce. TABASCO® Sauce is a uniquely global brand not only for its ubiquity, but also for its versatility. The iconic red-capped bottle with the diamond label is sold in more than 185 countries and territories and labeled in 22 languages and dialects. This instantly recognizable pepper sauce is just as at home in main street diners, hole-in-the-wall dives and the finest dining establishments as it is in the home pantries, kitchen tabletops and handbags of food lovers all over the world.

“My family and all of us at McIlhenny Company are truly humbled by the love we’ve seen for TABASCO® Sauce that has brought us to this incredible anniversary,” said Anthony A. Simmons, president and CEO of McIlhenny Company and fifth-generation McIlhenny family member. “I don’t know if my great-great-grandfather ever dreamed that his backyard start-up would have given rise to an entirely new food category. One hundred and fifty years later, I’m certain he’d be pleased to have brought so much great tasting food to so many people in so many places all around the world. It’s exciting to imagine where TABASCO® Sauce will go and how it will be used over the next 150 years.”

The careful craftsmanship and versatility of TABASCO® Sauce has made it a friend of chefs, home cooks, bartenders and food lovers for a century and a half. On the occasion of its 150th anniversary, McIlhenny Company, the maker of TABASCO® Sauce, is celebrating this historic milestone with a yearlong celebration dedicated to the people who have made “that famous sauce Mr. McIlhenny makes” a staple on tables, indispensable in kitchens and an essential ingredient in classic and contemporary recipes worldwide.

The 150th anniversary celebration kicked off in New Orleans with a limited engagement of “TABASCO: A Burlesque Opera,” a comedic burlesque dating to the late 19th century that hasn’t been performed in its entirety in more than 124 years.

“Back in 1894, a traveling comic opera drew crowds to theaters across America. They came to listen to witty lyrics and catchy tunes about — Tabasco. Called the ‘Burlesque Opera of Tabasco,’ the show quickly became an overnight sensation — after all, it featured a giant papier-mâché Tabasco bottle and the verse, ‘Turn out the town, boys drink it down, hail to the Peer of Tabasco.’ Due to alleged conflicts between composer George W. Chadwick and producer Thomas Q. Seabrooke, however, after the opera’s initial run, it faded into obscurity and was largely forgotten,” said Jennifer Nalewicki for the Jan. 25, 2018, Smithsonian.com. The show revival ran in New Orleans to sold-out audiences until Jan. 28.

Following the premiere, many of New Orleans’ most notable chefs and culinary institutions took part in the first ever TABASCO® Week in partnership with the New Orleans Tricentennial Commission, part of this year’s 300th anniversary of the city of New Orleans.

From New Orleans, the birthday party hits the road to celebrate the role of TABASCO® Sauce in the global kitchen. McIlhenny Company will invite fans in New York, London, Shanghai and beyond to events big and small, where they can taste the exciting and unexpected ways the world’s top chefs and creative cooks use the pepper sauce. Through the magic of 360 degree video, event attendees the world over will be transported to Avery Island, where heirloom tabasco pepper fields thrive, mashed peppers age in oak barrels and the TABASCO® Sauce factory still produces every single bottle of the world’s most famous sauce.

TABASCO® Brand will be featured at the Taste Along the Teche Food Demo from 9:30 to 11 a.m. April 6 as part of the Books Along the Teche Literary Festival. Chefs Marcelle Bienvenu and Alex Patout also will be part of the demo/sampling. Tickets are $25 available at The Shadows Visitors Center or read more at TecheFest.com.