TABASCO HISTORY

Tabasco was founded almost 150 years ago. Left is one of the first massmarketed bottle designs the company produced.

As the story goes, McIlhenny planted some pepper seeds he’d been given and liked the peppers they grew. He mashed them up with Avery Island salt, let the mixture age, then added vinegar and packaged the result in bottles designed for cologne. The spicy sauce was a hit.

Museum exhibits include vintage bottles along with the wooden barrels still used to age the sauce. A greenhouse displays some pepper plants, though the peppers are now mostly grown outside the U.S. The sauce is bottled here, though, and you’ll get a good look at the factory where a stream of bright red bottles flies past. The factory can produce up to 700,000 bottles a day, and you’ll see the day’s tally on a digital ticker.

By the way, the seeds have no connection to the state of Tabasco in Mexico, but the word tabasco is derived from an Aztec term that means “humid land,” and the seeds McIlhenny planted are said to have originated in Latin America.

Across the decades, Tabasco has become a cultural phenomenon as well as a culinary staple. One video in the museum shows Tabasco turning up in everything from Bugs Bunny cartoons to James Bond movies. Tabasco was used as a wartime code word and was included as a condiment in prepackaged meals for U.S. soldiers. And it’s sold in 195 countries and territories worldwide.

Tabasco’s current CEO, Tony Simmons, is McIlhenny’s great-great-grandson. He says only 2 to 4 percent of family businesses make it to the fourth generation, but Tabasco is already in the hands of the fifth generation.

“My family is very tied to Avery Island,” Simmons told the AP Travel podcast “Get Outta Here!” in an interview. “Avery Island is part of the reason we’ve been able to hold onto our business for 150 years.”