How Hot Is Tabasco?

Tabasco Sauce is arguably the only American hot sauce with a truly iconic status. First made in the 19th century, Tabasco sauce was probably the spiciest condiment available at the time of its invention. Even today, many Americans enjoy Tabasco’s level of heat and consider it to be a more than adequate level of spiciness. But is Tabasco sauce really spicy? Where does it rank on the Scoville scale? To understand how hot Tabasco sauce is, let’s consider a few important factors.

The pepper in Tabasco sauce

The type of chili peppers used to make Tabasco sauce are called tabasco peppers. They are far from the hottest peppers around, but they are not exactly mild either. They clock in at about 30,000 to 50,000 on the Scoville scale, which means that they are at the upper end of medium heat among chilies. Their heat level is the same range as that of cayenne peppers.

For a better understanding of their heat, consider the fact that jalapeños don’t get hotter than 8,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). While milder habaneros will rank at minimum scorching 100,000 (and range well above.) Tabasco peppers are around the midpoint between those two. That is, if your tabasco is at its hottest possible heat and the habanero is at its mildest potential spiciness.

The heat of Tabasco sauce

While tabasco peppers are moderately hot, the red sauce for which the brand is known is much milder than the fresh pepper. Tabasco brand’s flagship original red pepper sauce will provide between 2,500 and 5,000 SHUs, with the lower number likely being a little more the norm. The dramatic loss of heat – to a jalapeño pepper level of spiciness – is a result of how the peppers are processed to make the sauce as well as the sauce’s other ingredients.

In order to make Tabasco sauce, the chili peppers are first ground to a paste called a mash. Most of the mash is made at tabasco pepper farms in Central and South America. The mash is combined with salt and placed in repurposed bourbon barrels which then get shipped to the U.S. The barrels are stored in a warehouse on Avery Island, which is the home of Tabasco sauce.

The salted mash is aged for three years before it is used to make the sauce. After three years, it is combined with vinegar to dilute it. It is aged a further 28 days before being bottled. While the aging may add heat to the chili pepper mash, the dilution, of course, tempers the overall heat quite a bit (like with any hot sauce.)

How Tabasco compares to other hot sauces

The flavor profile of Tabasco sauce is a relatively simple one. The red sauce consists of only three ingredients: chili peppers, salt, and vinegar. Those three seasonings are all that you taste. In comparison, other popular hot sauces may contain ingredients that dilute their heat even further from their pepper origins.

That said, the classic Tabasco red sauce is not exactly a go-to hot sauce for serious fans of extreme heat. It’s not even the hottest sauce that Tabasco makes (meet the Tabasco Scorpion Sauce.) Though, it is a step up from Sriracha, albeit a small step, with Sriracha tapping in at roughly 2,200 SHUs. It’s a more family-friendly level of spiciness, meant to be enjoyed by the masses.

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