Tabasco is a brand of hot sauce made from Tabasco peppers, vinegar, and salt. The sauce is named after the Tabasco region of Mexico, where the peppers originally came from. The recipe for Tabasco sauce was first developed in 1868 by Edmund McIlhenny, a banker and amateur gardener who was living in Louisiana at the time.
McIlhenny experimented with growing the peppers and creating a sauce that would enhance the flavor of food. He eventually settled on a recipe that involved aging the peppers in vinegar for several months before straining out the solids and bottling the liquid as a hot sauce. The first bottles of Tabasco sauce were sold in 1869 and quickly gained popularity.