Tabasco Sauce Patent

Today’s Tabasco sauce would not have infringed the original Tabasco patent.

Originally (in 1870!), it took 43 days to make Tabasco sauce:
– Add vinegar and salt to peppers
– Leave the mixture to stand for 6 weeks
– Filter out the skins and seeds
– Pot the extracted skins and seeds for 24 hours with alcohol
– Press the liquid from the skins and seeds
– Combine the filtered and pressed liquid
– Pass it through a fine flour sieve
(Patent no. US107701)

However, to:
– appeal to a broader Halaal market, the step of adding alcohol was removed; and
– moderate the heat, the peppers are now salted and aged for up to 3 years before being soaked in vinegar.

McIlhenny didn’t let the patent inhibit product evolution.

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