Some good stuff, if you can get it. Tabasco Mash.

[trof]

I have a cousin who has a friend who works at the Avery Island Tabasco plant. The friend sends her 4 or 5 pounds of the mash once in a while. She shares with me. Bless her.

I think you can now buy it at the Tabasco gift shop on Avery Island. It's what's left over after they strain the liquid out.

It is a FANTASTIC spice. Good in chili, soups, stews, barbecue rubs, Bloody Marys, almost anything you want to 'kick up a notch'.

Here's where it comes from:
Tabasco® sauce is the longest continually produced hot pepper sauce, let's start with their procedure, which the McIlhenny Company has used for more than 125 years. After harvest, whole tabasco chiles are crushed in a hammer mill; salt is added in the amount of 8 pounds of salt for every 100 pounds of chiles. This mash is placed in Kentucky white oak barrels with salt-sealed wooden lids that have tiny holes which allow the gases of the peppers to escape during fermentation. The wooden tops are secured and placed on the barrels with stainless steel hoops (iron hoops disintegrate in the air of the salt and pepper mash).

Each 400-pound barrel is aged for three years, allowing the carbon dioxide to be released for the first two years. After this time, the salt topping hardens and naturally seals the barrel after the fermentation process ceases. The mellowing and aging process is called steeping, permitting the flavors and color to intermingle and mix naturally. The barrels are uncovered and oxidized mash is removed from the top of the barrels. The mash is inspected for aroma, color, and moisture. Upon being accepted under McIlhenny standards, the mash is pumped into large blending vats and mixed with distilled, all-natural white vinegar in the ratio of two-thirds vinegar to one-third mash. (Before being manufactured with commercial equipment, the blending process was referred to as "pounding," where the pepper mash was pushed manually through a strainer, where the vinegar was added, with a flat-headed "pounder". This was a very time-consuming process and took a lot of manual labor to do large quantities of sauce.)

For a month, this mixture is stirred for five minutes every hour. Finally, the vinegar-mash solution is strained, filtered, and bottled under the familiar trademarked diamond-shaped white, green, and red label. The strained mash residue is sold to crawfish boil and hot pepper cream manufacturers.

[XemaSab]

1. Is it alcoholic?

:9

[trof]

2. Uh...no.

But an alcoholic beverage of your choice would certainly be a recommended accompaniment.
:-)

[XemaSab]

3. If you can get ahold of the Roger Tory Peterson book "Wild America"

there's a whole chapter about the "Flying Gardens of Avery Island."

The gist of it is that Mr. MacIlhenny (sp?) was very instrumental in saving egrets and herons from plume hunters along the gulf coast. :)

[trof]

4. Yes. Familiar with that. Thanks.

Avery Island is a bird sanctuary.
Fascinating place and fascinating family.