HAGERSTOWN, Md. — Spicy food lovers around the world can all agree: Everything tastes better with a little Tabasco. Well, maybe not everything, but it is certainly a very popular sauce. In fact, it is so popular that the company that produces it, the McIlhenny Company, receives around $200 million a year in sales for the product, and it is sold in 195 countries.
The journey of Tabasco began right here in Hagerstown, sort of.
The man behind the sauce
The actual sauce itself was not invented in Washington County, but the man who created it was born there. Edmund McIlhenny (1815-1890) was born in Hagerstown on Oct. 15, 1815, to Irish-Scottish immigrants, John and Nancy McIlhenny. Raised and educated in Hagerstown, McIlhenny began his career as a banker. He remained in Hagerstown until 1840 when he moved south and changed the direction of spicy foods forever.
It’s all about the sauce
While working as a clerk and farmer, McIlhenny met a man named Maunsel White (1783-1863). The two men shared a passion for food, and White had learned to use a special type of pepper to make a spicy sauce that enhanced the flavor of meals.
The pepper was called “tabasco,” and he taught the recipe to McIlhenny. Some debate whether this was truly how McIlhenny got the recipe for Tabasco Sauce, but many within the company itself stand by it. No matter how the recipe was obtained, the financially minded Hagerstown native now had a product that would make him wealthy.
A twist of fate
The journey to fortune for McIlhenny was not an easy one. In the summer of 1859, he married Mary Eliza Avery (1838-1915), and the couple produced a large family of eight children. McIlhenny had received a small inheritance, and the family was doing well, but that would soon change.
During the Civil War, McIlhenny worked as a clerk and paymaster for the Confederate Army. Like many businessmen in the South, the war cost him nearly everything. McIlhenny was reduced to moving in with his wife’s family where he took solace working in the garden.
It was at this time he was believed to have met White and received the recipe that would change the direction of his life.
Mass market of flavor
In 1868, McIlhenny produced his first bottle of Tabasco Sauce and began selling it locally around Texas and Louisiana. A few years later he received a patent on the product and expanded his market to include the Northeastern states.
It was also at this time that he created the unique diamond logo that still adorns the bottles today. The growth of the company truly began in the mid-1870’s when McIlhenny teamed with the E.C. Hazard & Company, a distribution and manufacturing company out of New Jersey. The journey to culinary dominance had begun.
A spicy legacy
The success of the McIlhenny Company’s Tabasco Sauce did not have the effect on McIlhenny as one might have suspected. Once the business was operational, he would move on to other ventures, allowing his sons to run the business.
He passed away on Nov. 25, 1890, but the legacy he left behind is enjoyed by millions. The value of the company he created is now worth an estimated $3 billion. Not bad for a young boy born and raised in Hagerstown.
