According to the company's official history, Tabasco was first produced in 1868 by Edmund McIlhenny,[3] a Maryland-born former banker who moved to Louisiana around 1840.

Mr. White's table no doubt groaned with the region's varied fare—drawing inspiration from European, Caribbean, and Cajun sources—but one of his favorite sauces was of his own devising, made from a pepper named for its origins in the Mexican state of Tabasco.

"[5] To distribute his, Edmund McIlhenny initially obtained unused cologne bottles from a New Orleans glass supplier.

[6] On John's departure, brother Edward Avery McIlhenny, a self-taught naturalist fresh from an Arctic adventure, assumed control of the company and also focused on expansion and modernization, running the business from 1898 until his death in 1949.

Edward McIlhenny Simmons then ran the company as president and CEO for several years, remaining as board chairman until his death in 2012.

[11] In 2005, Avery Island was hit hard by Hurricane Rita, and the family constructed a 17-foot (5.2 m)-high levee around the low side of the factory and invested in back-up generators.

Over time, growers were selected throughout Louisiana to accommodate demand and during the 1960s, the company established farms in various Latin American countries.

As of 2013[update] peppers grown on the Island are used to produce seed stock, which is then shipped to foreign growers.

Peppers are ground into a mash on the day of harvest and placed along with salt in white oak barrels previously used for whiskey of various distilleries.

The resulting liquid is then mixed with distilled vinegar, stirred occasionally for a month, and then bottled as a finished sauce.

This sauce consists of peppers that have been aged for up to fifteen years, then mixed with sparkling white wine vinegar.

McIlhenny Company also permits other brands to use and advertise Tabasco sauce as an ingredient in their products (a common marketing practice called "co-branding"), including Spam, Hormel chili, Slim Jim beef sticks, Heinz ketchup, A1 steak sauce, Plochman's mustard, Lawry's salt, Zapp's potato chips, Heluva Good dip, and Vlasic Pickles.

It instructed troops how to mix C-rations to make such meals as "Combat Canapés" or "Breast of Chicken under Bullets.

[26] During the same period, McIlhenny Company issued a new military-oriented cookbook using characters from the comic strip Beetle Bailey.

Some appearances date as far back as the Our Gang short Birthday Blues in 1932 and Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times in 1936.

In Back to the Future Part III, the saloon bartender uses Tabasco as an ingredient for an instant hangover cure he calls "wake-up juice".

In the 2009 Disney animated film The Princess and the Frog Tiana is seen using Tabasco sauce for her gumbo soup.