Hot Tabasco sauce for true mixologists

Burning like hot cauldrons in the underworld, the legendary Tabasco sauce has become a cult not only within the kitchens of housewives, but also on the shelves of the best bar counters. Today I want to tell you about this ambrosia, without which it is impossible to make a worthy Bloody Mary and a huge number of other cocktails and drinks.

The sharp contents of tiny jars of Tabasco are capable of raising a dead man to his feet; a couple of drops of it in an anti-hangover cocktail will have an antiseptic effect on the entire body and will positively affect the performance of the digestive system. Today it is the most recognizable sauce in the world – the label has been translated into 22 languages, and the products from Louisiana are sold in 160 countries around the world. Where does it come from and why has it become a cult? Let’s figure it out.

What is Tabasco sauce – history, recipe, types

According to Wiki, Tabasco sauce is the trade name for hot sauces that are made from the pulp of the fruit of cayenne pepper (colloquially Tabasco pepper), salt and vinegar. They are prepared by lacto-fermentation, that is, fermentation, when starch and sugar are converted into other useful substances under the action of bacteria. This is how sauerkraut, real kvass or ginger beer are prepared. True, Tabasco is aged in white Limousin oak barrels for three years, and in this it is perhaps truly unique. The production process is extremely simple: the fruits of cayenne pepper are ground into a puree and mixed with salt, after which they are left in barrels for a specified period, and this is no less than 3 years for a classic. After that, the fermented mixture is diluted with vinegar, filtered and poured into small bottles.

Each 2 oz bottle of Tabasco (about 60 ml) contains a minimum of 720 drops.

The history of Tabasco is interesting. It was first prepared by the Irishman Edmund McAilenny, who moved to Louisiana with his family back in 1840. At first, he prepared the sauce he liked only for his family and friends, pouring it into small bottles of cologne. The success of his creation spread around the district and Edmund decided to go national, for which in 1868 he ordered thousands of small bottles from a glass factory in New Orleans.

Tabasco bottles with diamond-shaped labels are among the most recognizable in the world, along with traditional Coca-Cola bottles. Their design has not changed for the last 100 years.

Tabasco production is still carried out in Louisiana and gravitates towards the small estate of Avery Island, which is owned by the McIllennie family (now Edmund’s sixth generation heir at the helm of the company). The estate sits on the Louisiana salt mines, where the salt for the sauce comes from. Initially, all cayenne pepper for Tabasco was grown exclusively on Avery Island, but this continued only until 1960. Now raw materials for Tabasco are supplied from Colombia, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Ecuador. The picking of peppers is strictly controlled by McIlhenny technologists – Tabasco peppers are harvested exclusively by hand, and its ripeness is determined using a special indicator that each employee has.

McIlhenny is the official sauce supplier for NASA – Tabasco is regularly in space. Hot sauce is included in the official diet of astronauts from the Space Shuttle program.

Under the Tabasco brand, 7 different sauces are produced, which differ in taste, composition and hotness. Only the classic, real Tabasco Original red sauce is subjected to a three-year exposure. The mildest is Tabasco Sweet’n’Spicy sauce, followed by Tabasco Buffalo sauce for chicken wings and Tabasco Green jalapeno-based sauce (no cayenne). The next strongest garlic sauce is Tabasco Garlic (a mixture of three peppers), then smoked Tabasco Chipotle (based on chipotle peppers). The hottest sauce is Tabasco Habanero.

Let me remind you that for alcoholic experiments it is best to use the original sauce, which is subjected to three years of aging – Tabasco Original. It is he who goes to Bloody Mary and the chasers that I wrote about here. If suddenly you can’t find Tabasco sauce in your city, try making it at home.

Homemade Tabasco Recipes

To get a product that is as similar as possible to Tabasco sauce, you will have to get the pepper of the same name (cayenne pepper). Fortunately, now you can grow Tabasco at home – you can buy overseas hot pepper seeds in numerous online stores for mere pennies. Of course, instead of Tabasco, you can take any other hot red pepper. You should also carefully approach the choice of other ingredients. In particular, you should refuse iodized salt, which will not have the best effect on the flavor of the sauce. A good result is obtained with kosher salt (originally used to kosher meat, not what you might think), which is very common in the US. It is even more important to use high-quality vinegar, which is best prepared at home, using apple or white grape wine, for example.

Quick Tabasco Sauce by Pat Stockett, 1947

Recipe from The Blue Blue Book Vol. X, 1947 edition by Pat Stockett.

Wash the pepper, remove the stems, transfer to a saucepan, add garlic and water. Boil until the pepper softens, then strain the liquid through a tight sieve. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Pour the finished sauce into sterilized jars and close the lid tightly. Homemade Tabasco can be diluted with vinegar or salad oil just before serving, or used neat in cocktails. Keep refrigerated.

A modern imitation of Tabasco sauce

In a saucepan, mix all the ingredients, bring the mixture to a boil and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, cool to room temperature and puree in a blender until smooth. Transfer the resulting puree to a jar of a suitable volume, close the jar tightly and leave in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. Then strain the sauce through a sieve or several layers of cheesecloth and adjust its consistency by adding vinegar, if necessary. Store in a sterile jar in the refrigerator. Shelf life of 1 year or more.

Tabasco style fermented hot sauce

Quite an interesting recipe using toasted oak cubes (don’t forget that the original Tabasco is aged in oak barrels). As for preparing oak chips (essentially no different from cubes), check out Don Pomazan’s article on cognac imitations, there’s a good guide at the end.

* – xanthan gum, or additive E415, is used as a stabilizer and thickener of the sauce; addition is desirable, but not required.

Rinse the peppers, remove the stems and roughly chop, then transfer to a blender or food processor with salt and water. Beat until a homogeneous paste is obtained. Place the resulting puree in a jar with a screw cap and close tightly. The jar should be left in a dark place with an air temperature of about 12^оC, can be higher – in such conditions, the pepper must be fermented for at least a week, sometimes this process lasts up to 3 weeks, depending on the variety of pepper and its maturity. At least once a day, you need to carefully open the lid so that carbon dioxide leaves the jar and oxygen comes in (I remind you that this is not yeast fermentation and bacteria need oxygen for their life).

When the fermentation process is over and the pepper has settled to the bottom, add oak cubes, close the jar tightly and leave under the same conditions for a period of 3 months to 2 years. Having decided to open the sauce and put it to use, mix the fermented pasta with vinegar and transfer the newly-baked Tabasco to a smaller container. Now there are two options: shake the sauce for a month and constantly strain it from seeds and pulp to get a liquid consistency, or leave everything as it is and get a thick, dense sauce. But a thick sauce will constantly delaminate and will have to be constantly shaken. To prevent this from happening, as xanthan gum is needed, you need to dissolve it in 2 tbsp. l. water and beat in a blender with sauce for about 1 minute. Before bottling in Tabasco jars, you need to rest for at least 1 hour so that excess air comes out of it. It must be stored in the refrigerator, the shelf life is 1 year or more.

Be sure to buy or make your own Tabasco sauce for your home bar. With it you can prepare a lot of delicious drinks, including the classic Mary, and even spice up soup or stew …