Close your eyes and think of hot sauce. What’s the first name that comes to mind? It’s Tabasco, isn’t it? The brand Tabasco has become synonymous with the hot sauce industry and, as a result, people often refer to hot sauce as simply ‘Tabasco’ – much like ‘Hoover’ is actually a brand of vacuum cleaner, but people just refer to all vacuums as ‘Hoovers’. I can’t remember the first time I had Tabasco sauce – to me, it’s always been there on all my culinary adventures. A staple ingredient in the modern kitchen.
Practically everyone will recognise the Tabasco bottle. The branding is simple and yet so effective. The little bottles are designed to make users think that they can’t have too much, else they’d give you a bigger bottle, which conjures up the feeling of potentially extreme heat lurking within. Through the bottle, you can see the sauce itself, it’s somewhat runny and watery but there’s pulp sediment and remnants of fermented pepper that clings to the side of the bottle, further highlighting the fact that it’s only made from three ingredients. As soon as you see the Tabasco logo and bottle, you know exactly what you’re getting into.
Once you open the bottle, you are hit right off the bat with the smell of…shall we say it all together?…vinegar! Yup, that strong and overpowering smell emanating from such a little bottle of Tabasco is none other than vinegar! What strikes me as strange is that most people, when faced with the smell of vinegar (especially in the hot sauce world) are quick to condemn it and it would even be enough for them to not want to taste the product. However, when it’s Tabasco sauce, the story is entirely different – they love the smell of vinegar now, as that’s ‘the Tabasco smell’. The vinegary, and yet somewhat oaky, smell of the sauce.
How do you describe the taste of Tabasco? Well, I’d start by describing the peppers that instantly hit your tastebuds from the moment the first drop hits them. You can taste the fermented peppers in vinegar, which gives it that sharp sweet taste. In some ways, it is like a lot of sauces that are available to buy, containing aged and fermented peppers. What I really like about Tabasco though is the barrel-aging process of the peppers, that gives it the oaky undertones to the sauce’s flavour. Not a lot of sauce manufacturers use a barrel-aging process, and if they did then it doesn’t come through in their sauce’s taste. The taste of Tabasco is instantly recognisable and is part of the reason people keep coming back for more.
With Tabasco only being 2,500 units on the Scoville Heat Rating, it’s certainly not the hottest sauce that’s out there on the market. The heat, at first, is sharp but quickly dissipates. Which is a shame, because I have found that after the heat is gone, there isn’t really much of a taste to Tabasco, just the taste of the food that it has been paired with. If your first forage into the world of hot sauce has started with Tabasco, then you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is the hottest sauce you’ll ever taste. For those tastebud thrill-seekers out there, you don’t need me to tell you that there are much hotter sauces out there for you to try.
I have used Tabasco on many many different foods (and drinks! Try a Bloody Mary!) in my kitchen adventures and it always adds a bit of a kick to anything I’m cooking. Although, once you’ve tried other sauces, particularly those with more exotic flavours and spices, going back to Tabasco might be considered a bit ‘boring’. But I would argue otherwise – Tabasco is like putting on your favourite pair of PJs; you know exactly what you’re getting and it’s that comfort that you’ve grown accustomed to, that makes it so popular across the globe.