Food - Drink
Why Tabasco Sauce Was Originally Meant To Be Sprinkled On Food
By CHRIS SANDS
In the more than 150 years since Tabasco sauce was originally made, little has changed about the original product or the family-owned company that makes it. The most significant change to Tabasco sauce since 1868 is the bottle top, as creator Edmund McIlhenny intended the sauce to be sprinkled on food.
Since Edmund McIlhenny always intended his original red pepper hot sauce to be sprinkled rather than poured on food because of its extremely spicy flavor, he used small, cologne-style bottles with "sprinkler fitments" at the top. The rumor goes that he found old cologne bottles and filled them with Tabasco sauce, according to former CEO Paul McIlhenny.
Paul McIlhenny continues by saying that "his sauce was so concentrated that it was practical" and that "the sprinkler would allow something to be dispensed by the drop or the dash rather than poured on." Prior to the bottle style change in 1927, when they switched to the red twist-off cap the fitments were originally cork-capped and then covered in green wax.