Original Tabasco sauce, made by McIlhenny Company, Avery Island, Louisiana 70513, was the 1st hot sauce I ever tried. For years it was the only sauce I used. I was 13 and I simply didn’t realize there were more options out there. Tabasco in my head is the baseline of all hot sauces both in flavor and heat, every other sauce I have ever tried, in my head, has been compared to Tabasco. It is 0, anything hotter or more flavorful is in the + and anything less is a -.
That said, these days Tabasco is one of my least favorite sauces. I don’t particularly care for the flavor. I do like it’s heat level, but I can find the same level of heat in sauces that I like the flavor of much more.
On my scale of 1 to 10, I give Tabasco a 2 in flavor and a 4 in heat. It adds a nice level of heat with only the littlest bit of discomfort.
Tabasco has a Scoville rating of 2,500 to 5,000 heat units. (http://www.tabascofoodservice.com/about_scoville.cfm)
