McIlHenney Company

One year ago, Feb. 23 2013 Paul C. P. McIlhenny the 6^th in his family to run the McIlhenny Company passed away. RIP Paul. The world will miss you. Because its a Tobasco world and a family tradition after all.
The McllHenney family has a long history of service in the US military. The US military has included Tabasco sauce in Meals, Ready-​to-​Eat (MREs) since the 1980s. The British and Canadian armies also issue small bottles of Tabasco sauce in their rations. During the Vietnam War, Brigadier General Walter S. McIlhenny issued The Charlie Ration Cookbook.(Charlie ration was the name for the field meal then given to troops.) This cookbook came wrapped around a two-​ounce bottle of Tabasco sauce in a camouflaged, water-​resistant container. It instructed troops how to mix C-​rations to make such meals as «Combat Canapés» or «Breast of Chicken under Bullets.»
Not so spicy as you think. Know your Scoville dude!
The original red variety of Tabasco pepper sauce measures 2,500−5,000 SHU on the Scoville scale.
Habanero sauce is above 7,000 Scoville units.
Chipotle sauce adds chipotle pepper to the original sauce, measuring 1,500−2,500.
The garlic variety, which blends milder peppers in with the tabasco peppers, rates 1,200−1,400 Scovilles.
Green pepper (jalapeño) sauce is even milder at 600 – 1,200 Scovilles.
Sweet and Spicy sauce is the mildest at only 100 – 600 Scoville units.
But its the vinegar that gets your sinuses working while the heat kicks in.
Tobasco peppers once only grown on Avery Island, are now mostly grown in Central and South America. Still following company tradition, peppers are handpicked and to ensure ripeness they are compared by pickers to a little red stick (le petit bâton rouge). Peppers are ground into a mash on the day of harvest and placed along with salt in white oak barrels (aging barrels previously used for Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey). To prepare the barrel, the inside of the barrel is de-​charred (top layer of wood is removed), torched and cleaned, to minimize the presence of any residual whiskey. The barrels are then used in warehouses on Avery Island for aging the mash.
After aging for up to three years, the mash is strained to remove skins and seeds. The resulting liquid is mixed with vinegar, stirred occasionally for a month, and then bottled as finished sauce. Much of the salt used in Tabasco production comes from an Avery Island salt mine, one of the largest in the U.S.
Tobasco brand pepper sauce is sold in more than 165 countries and territories and is packaged in 22 languages and dialects. The Tabasco bottle is still modeled after the cologne-​style bottles used for the first batch of sauce in 1868. As many as 720,000 two-​ounce bottles of Tabasco sauce are produced daily at the Tabasco factory on Avery Island. Bottles range from the common two-​ounce and five-​ounce bottles, up to a giant one US gallon jug for food service businesses, and down to a 1/​8-​ounce miniature bottle. There are also 0.11-ounce portion control (PC) packets Tabasco sauce. One-​eighth ounce bottles of Tabasco, bearing the presidential seal, are served on Air Force One.
The next time you order some food and ask for tobacco remember the rich history that goes with that original Tobasco taste.