That first bite of a fresh pod

[FloridaSun]

Just curious. I have thought about getting Tabasco peppers but there is something stopping me. Do they taste like that god awful sauce? I know some people think it taste good and all but I think it taste like sh*t. So is it the pepper or the "fine" recipe of other ingredients in the sauce?

It's interesting that you don't like the sauce.

It's labeled in 22 languages and dialects, sold in over 160 countries and territories, added to soldiers rations, and put on restaurant tables around the globe, it is the most famous, most preferred pepper sauce in the world based on sales.

I've met a few people who don't like it. Most of them just don't like any hot sauce. However, your opinion of it is different than the people who consume the 100 million bottles of Tabasco pepper sauce a year.

I do love my hot peppers. I love my own sauces. However, I sure wouldn't mind getting a share of the sale price of all that sauce. Someone sure likes it.

What you've said is the equivalent of saying "I think chocolate tastes like shit".

So many people disagree with you, that it makes you kind of an oddball for not liking it's taste.

But that's what makes the world go round'.

Peace!

The problem with the sauce is the overwhelming amount of vinegar in it. The peppers are actually nice and tasty, and QUITE hot compared to the sauce. They're also very prolific. You can make your own version of Tabasco sauce with them that will be much tastier than the one in the store.

If it is that much tastier, then you'll make a fortune after displacing Tabasco's 100 Million a year sales.

Good luck!

Knocking something that works is nuts. Imitating it will make you way more money. Unless you just don't like money.

I think it's great that people love their own sauces. If you put yours on the market and people start using it instead of Tabasco, then you'll be the next Bill Gates.

(I'm a marketing person. No offence meant. Opinions are like....etc Money talks and....etc)

I'm betting I would love your sauce too. Tabasco is a good taste, but just not enough spice in it for me. NO ONE will try my sauce after the first time. They just look at me like I'm nuts. "Dude, that stuff is too hot to eat!"

For taste, the average person likes the way Tabasco tastes. They prefer it. They love it. They put the stuff on everything! If I were to want money in hot sauce sales, I would be inclined to follow their example and try to get some of their sales.

 

[MrArboc]

FloridaSun: McDonald's is the most successful chain of restaurants ever. No other comes close.

Does that mean they serve the best food?

 

[FloridaSun]

FloridaSun: McDonald's is the most successful chain of restaurants ever. No other comes close.

Does that mean they serve the best food?

It means that more people eat there than any other restaurant. There has to be a reason.

The taste of the food, yes. Go to a McDonalds and watch a teen tear into a Big Mac. They look like they're eating mana from heaven.

Fries? Again, watch. Yes, they love them.

Sorry man, your argument doesn't hold water.

 

[MrArboc]

Sorry man, your argument doesn't hold water.

No, your argument doen't hold water or even air - teenagers are always starving and tear into anything like they haven't seen food before.

McDonald's, Coke and Tabasco are "popular" because it's always available. Where I live Tabasco is the only somewhat hot condiment that can always be found - therefore people buy/use it. Why try something else if they get the chanse when they know Tabasco is somewhat OK? Why try a local burgerplace on the road when you know exactly what you get at McD?

Availability, availability, availability.

Tabasco sauce is a horrible product but people use it because they don't know better. Getting the military to give small bottles to US soldiers is a jackpot - teach the young people to use it when they have nothing else to choose from when the food it too bland to enjoy.

 

[bigt]

FloridaSun: McDonald's is the most successful chain of restaurants ever. No other comes close.

Does that mean they serve the best food?

They don't serve the best food, but just stuff that a whole lot of people like. Plus it's fast and very consistent no matter where you are. Similar to Tabasco sauce, it's hot enough, consistent and addicting to many people who have no inclination to further explore other hot sauces. There are tons of cheap Louisiana style hot sauces out there with a similar taste to Tabasco, but people still pay more for the real thing. Marketing helps a bunch and Tabasco logos are ubiquitous. You can drink cola or Coke - marketing and consistent quality makes most people buy Coke.

 

[Smokenstein]

Just curious. I have thought about getting Tabasco peppers but there is something stopping me. Do they taste like that god awful sauce? I know some people think it taste good and all but I think it taste like sh*t. So is it the pepper or the "fine" recipe of other ingredients in the sauce?

This is my first year of growing tabascos and I love them. This thread actually inspired me to pick one of my reddish ones off the plant and eat it (I've only gotten a few of those so far and they don't make it out of the garden). I don't really taste the correlation between the actual pepper and the sauce, probably because the sauce is so vinegary... but unlike you, I still like the sauce. What I've found so far is that tabasco may be one of the most beautiful and prolific pepper plants I've grown (though I haven't grown the extensive list many in here have). I'd say give it a try. I have one plant that has over 50 pods on it right now, and then 4 other plants that I pinched that are just now starting to produce.

crazy8, I didn't get the real flavor of the pepper since it was unripe. Grow some, see for yourself.

Depending on how long it's been on there, it was probably riper than you think. Like I mentioned above, tabascos don't have to be red to pick them. After eating another red one today, I think I actually prefer the flavor of them when they're yellow, and I haven't noticed much of a difference in the heat (I actually kind of feel like the yellow may have been hotter)... but that may be because I've been eating a little more various peppers the last couple of weeks since the first yellow tab I tried.

 

[FloridaSun]

No, your argument doen't hold water or even air - teenagers are always starving and tear into anything like they haven't seen food before.

McDonald's, Coke and Tabasco are "popular" because it's always available. Where I live Tabasco is the only somewhat hot condiment that can always be found - therefore people buy/use it. Why try something else if they get the chanse when they know Tabasco is somewhat OK? Why try a local burgerplace on the road when you know exactly what you get at McD?

Availability, availability, availability.

Tabasco sauce is a horrible product but people use it because they don't know better. Getting the military to give small bottles to US soldiers is a jackpot - teach the young people to use it when they have nothing else to choose from when the food it too bland to enjoy.

Now you're just arguing to be arguing. The people who are buying 100 million bottles of Tabasco are all wrong and you're right!

You're living in a dream world man.

Attacking me for stating reality won't change reality.

If Mickey D's and Tabasco tasted like shit, no one would go back for seconds.

Again, your argument is lame.

Sales, sales, sales. That's what shows which one tastes better.

If you disagree, then you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Get real.

 

[MrArboc]

Again, your argument is lame.

Sales, sales, sales. That's what shows which one tastes better.

If you really are in marketing as you claimed earlier you know that is BS.

Sales has nothing to to with being the better product. Why don't you try some of the other hot sauces out there, if you still think Tabasco Brand is the best then I'll just agree to disagree.

 

[FloridaSun]

I don't really taste the correlation between the actual pepper and the sauce, probably because the sauce is so vinegary...

Tabasco also uses a lactic acid fermentation that radically changes the flavor of foods. 3 years of flavoring in oak barrels also causes a drastic change in flavor, just as it does with a lot of booze that's time flavored that way.

The vinegar serves two purposes; it brings the heat to a level that the average person enjoys and also brings the pH down with an ingredient that everyone is familiar with in terms of flavor.

The difference between a canned Jalapeno and a fresh one in taste will make that point very clear. In some dishes, I prefer the canned flavor with the vinegar to that of fresh. A lot of people think that way. It's a matter of what you're used to and what you've become accustomed to in your life.

I was recently in a place for breakfast and was watching a guy at the next table DROWN his entire breakfast in Tabasco. He really had my attention because of the amount he was using. It looked like he dumped about half the bottle.

He noticed me watching and his face lit up and he said "I LOVE THIS STUFF. It makes everything taste so good!"

100 million bottles a year.

Yep. I would say following their example is a way to more money than any other method.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I do, however, like my own sauces hotter than Tabasco. After getting acclimated to the heat over years, Tabasco just doesn't meet my heat standards.

But I do realize that I'm the exception to the rule, not the rule.

The people who buy 100 million bottles of Tabasco are the rule.

 

[FiveStar]

This thread is getting derailed here, but all I'll say is sales cannot possibly correlate to what tastes better. As has been stated before, marketing and availability by far outweigh the quality of a product in terms of influencing sales.

When it comes to pepper sauces, I think fresher is better. A sauce made from fresh tabasco peppers at home will taste better, at least to its maker, than store bought tabasco sauce. Why? Because the taste of the sauce can be taylored by the sauce maker to his/her own preferences.

And for the record, I make a watered down vinegary ass sauce with habs and Fataliis that has the consistency and vinegar presence of tabasco sauce. I love it. But that's probably because I'm from eastern North Carolina where all the barbecue sauce is AC vinegar based. And I wouldn't use tabasco unless it's all that was available to me.

 

[rainbowberry]

I'll rail it again then. My first own grown pod was a Cayenne and it tasted a bit like a pod of peas, the next was a Orange Hab as they were the only two plants I had at the time. I've loved Habs ever since.

 

[FloridaSun]

If you really are in marketing as you claimed earlier you know that is BS.

Sales has nothing to to with being the better product. Why don't you try some of the other hot sauces out there, if you still think Tabasco Brand is the best then I'll just agree to disagree.

Now I'm a liar because I don't agree with you? You're sounding younger and younger every time you post.

Sales has EVERYTHING to do with what product is favored. Regardless of the specific reasons each customer has for their purchase, the end result is the sales.

I've tried hundreds of sauces. I make my own.

Your denial that a product that sells 100 million bottles a year is the preferred product is silly.

Of course it's the preferred product. Dude, that's why they're buying it.

Please don't reduce my opinion of you any more by attacking me for stating my opinion.

I've been in marketing for more than 40 years. I do know what I'm talking about.

Like I've said, your opinion of Tabasco sauce "tasting like shit" is by far a minority opinion. You're such a tiny fraction of the over-all opinion that you're not even at 1% of the total.

If you attack again, I'll just ignore you from that point on. You've been warned. If you can't discuss the topic with good manners and an adult context, then I'll let you speak to someone else.

 

[bigt]

I'll add one thing we might all agree on. The reason we are on this forum is because we all desire something that tastes better that Tabasco. Is Tabasco a good product? Yes, I think it is. Do I own a bottle? Yes. Do I use it much? No.

 

[crazy8]

It's interesting that you don't like the sauce.
It's labeled in 22 languages and dialects, sold in over 160 countries and territories, added to soldiers rations, and put on restaurant tables around the globe, it is the most famous, most preferred pepper sauce in the world based on sales.

Im a huge geek that isnt a sucker for good marketing and poor products yet all the sheep fallow the iPhone or any other i. Some might say its the best because its seen everywhere yet that would be far from the truth.

Im just one of the few I guess who dont think it taste that great. Im a huge fan of buffalo wild wing sauce though.

 

[FloridaSun]

This thread is getting derailed here, but all I'll say is sales cannot possibly correlate to what tastes better. As has been stated before, marketing and availability by far outweigh the quality of a product in terms of influencing sales.

That's simply not true. Please, go to a book store and buy a book about marketing.

In that book, you'll find the same thing that is in every single marketing book in the world; "If the public doesn't like your product, then it won't sell much, regardless of how well it's marketed. Availability is part of marketing, not an addition to it.

If you put a dog turd in the best wrapper in the world and use the top marketing agency in the world to sell it as a condiment, it's not going to sell more than one to any customer. Why? Because it tastes like shit!

However, if the public LIKES the way your product tastes, then they'll purchase it. When they start purchasing it in quantities more than what you've supplied it, you'll have to increase your supply accordingly to meet the market.

THIS is what has happened with Tabasco. NOT the other way around.

If you look up McClenney's sales records, you'll find that what I've said is exactly what happened and is still happening.

To say that people don't like it's flavor is crazy. Of course they do.

 

[FloridaSun]

Im a huge geek that isnt a sucker for good marketing and poor products yet all the sheep fallow the iPhone or any other i. Some might say its the best because its seen everywhere yet that would be far from the truth.

Im just one of the few I guess who dont think it taste that great. Im a huge fan of buffalo wild wing sauce though.

I never said that Tabasco was the best hot sauce in the world. I said it's the most preferred.

Some would say that being the most preferred IS the same as the best.

It depends on the individual.

 

[MrArboc]

Sales has EVERYTHING to do with what product is favored.

Now you are just changing the subject. This was not about what is favored, it was about whether or not Tabasco is the best hot "sauce" or not. You can ramble on, be angry and try to insult me all you want - but that does not make you right.

If you attack again, I'll just ignore you from that point on. You've been warned. If you can't discuss the topic with good manners and an adult context, then I'll let you speak to someone else.

Oh, threats when people don't bow to your wishes. You are going to be popular on this forum. But you can be assured that I'll do my very best not to stoop to your level! And I'll end this now since you won't stay on subject.

 

[FloridaSun]

I'll add one thing we might all agree on. The reason we are on this forum is because we all desire something that tastes better that Tabasco. Is Tabasco a good product? Yes, I think it is. Do I own a bottle? Yes. Do I use it much? No.

bigt, you've hit the proverbial nail on the head! This is a Hot Pepper Group.

Of course the weak, vinegar filled standard isn't accepted here as anything even close to being the best or preferred.

It's kind of like going to a fried chicken place and telling them they should only serve veggies.

I don't even own a bottle of Tabasco. I'm not one of the 100 million.

Those guys won't even TRY my sauce!

 

[FloridaSun]

I'll end this now since you won't stay on subject.

Excellant! Bye. Also, you're wrong. Nothing was ever said about it being the best. I'd say that YOU are the one changing the story.

Oh shucks, you won't be my friend? I'm hurt.

 

[crazy8]

Wow I really started a fire here. If I am some how the cause of this I put my apology up front. I was just simply interested in a pepper and hopped it didn't share the same taste as its bottled counterpart since I am 1 out of 100 million who is not a fan.