We really like hot sauce around here. If you asked us what we put hot sauce on, it would probably be easier for us to list what we DON’T put hot sauce on. Tabasco sauce just might be America’s favorite hot sauce, and it also happens to be one of ours. Odds are that you’ve seen it, tried it and probably tried it again.
Derived from the Tabasco pepper and produced on Avery Island in Louisiana, Tabasco is — as an NPR article memorably described, “To hot sauce what Kleenex is to tissue and Xerox is to copying.” However, the history of Tabasco sauce is so hotly contested that Tabasco.com now has a “Myths” page, designed to de-bunk the often misquoted origin story of this vinegary legend.