Tabasco Sauce's Iconic Red Color Comes From A Critical Process

To make Tabasco brand hot sauce, the peppers need to be perfectly ripe. To achieve this, the company's pickers use a painted red stick to verify the correct color.

In the case of Tabasco sauce, the company was after consistency for flavor and color, so it needed an easy way of clueing in pickers on the peppers that were at peak ripeness.

Their solution was "le petit bâton rouge," or "the little red stick" in English (not to be confused with the New Orleans’ capital, Baton Rouge).

These wooden dowels, painted with the specific red hue, are still in use today and continue to ensure that Tabasco sauce retains its iconic color and taste.