Tabasco's Secret Sauce: The McIlhenny Family Recipe for Success

With a timeline that dates back to the Civil War and a recipe with roots, quite literally, in pre-colonial South America, Tabasco is often referred to as a “heritage brand” — a label commonly attached to companies that ooze tradition and invoke nostalgia in older consumers

Though it embraces its rich history and reputation as the world’s most recognizable hot sauce brand, Tabasco typically dismisses monikers like “heritage brand,” which it says puts a limit on what the company is capable of.

“Is heritage important here? Absolutely, but we're also a very vibrant brand” says Harold Osborn, a fifth-generation McIlhenny and senior vice president at the McIlhenny Company, Tabasco’s parent company, which, under the tutelage of Edmund McIlhenny, began making hot sauce in 1868. Read more...