The McIlhenny Company’s TABASCO® brand Original Red Sauce is as simple as it is intricate. The sauce contains only three ingredients—red peppers, distilled vinegar and salt—but undergoes a careful and lengthy production process to guarantee the heat, flavor and quality the brand represents.

The process starts with the peppers, which come from plants grown from seeds that are hand-selected each year by a member of the McIlhenny family. Every pepper is picked using “the little red stick,” which is colored to match the color of a ripe pepper.

photo courtesy of Denny Culbert Photography