SOME COMMON MYTHS ABOUT TABASCO=AE BRAND PEPPER SAUCE

In 2006, McIlhenny Company will formally open a museum in New Orleans
dedicated to the origins and history of one of Louisiana's most
famous products, Tabasco brand pepper sauce - a condiment whose
history has been intertwined with that of America for over 135 years.
This museum, and the exhibits and information it will contain, are the
result of a concerted effort by McIlhenny Company to honor its heritage
and to accurately chronicle the events surrounding the creation of this
global culinary icon.

In the course of researching and preparing for the opening of the
museum, we have learned that there a few common myths about our
brand's history that have been repeated so often over the years that
many consider them to be fact. Therefore, McIlhenny Company has
decided to share with die-hard Tabasco fans and American history buffs
alike - both on its own Internet site and in a few relevant public
forums - answers to a number of frequently asked questions regarding
the long, and often fabled, history of Tabasco brand pepper sauce.

McIlhenny Company has a continuing commitment to accurately present its
own historical record as new archival and historical material becomes
available; as a result, the following may be updated periodically.

Sincerely,

Shane Bernard, Ph.D.
Historian & Curator
McIlhenny Company
Avery Island LA 70513



Q: Did a man named Maunsel White produce a pepper sauce prior to Edmund
McIlhenny's introduction of Tabasco brand pepper sauce.

A: Yes. However, it is untrue that Maunsel White's sauce was
advertised for sale as early as 1853, as some have claimed. In fact,
White's sauce was first advertised for sale, based on current
information, in 1864 as "Maunsel White's Concentrated Essence of
Tobasco Pepper" - only four years before Edmund McIlhenny put his
Tabasco brand pepper sauce on the market.

Q: Does this mean that Maunsel White coined the Tabasco trademark?

A: No. Maunsel White died in 1863, a year before his heirs first
marketed his sauce; and when they did so, as mentioned above, they used
the name "Maunsel White's Concentrated Essence of Tobasco
Pepper." This product was subsequently referred to and known by the
consuming public as "Maunsel White's." Therefore, because
White's product was identified by the public using the shorthand
designation "Maunsel White's," it is doubtful that the White
family had any proprietary rights in the word "Tobasco."

In addition, the best information presently available indicates that
Maunsel White's product ceased to be manufactured commercially during
the 1870s. Thus, even if White's heirs claimed rights to
"Tobasco," their failure to use the word beginning in the 1870s
would have resulted in what is legally referred to as trademark
abandonment.

Q: Does history record that Edmund McIlhenny obtained his peppers or
pepper sauce recipe from Maunsel White?

A: No. In fact, there is no contemporary historical evidence that
Edmund McIlhenny knew Maunsel White, much less that he received his
peppers or pepper sauce recipe from Maunsel White. Furthermore, we
know that White's and McIlhenny's recipes were different:
White's recipe, descriptions of which appeared in print on at least
two occasions, called for boiling his concoction; whereas McIlhenny
never boiled his product, but allowed it to ferment naturally.

Q: Might Maunsel White's and Edmund McIlhenny's peppers been of
the same variety?

A: Although it's possible that White's and McIlhenny's peppers
were the same variety, it's also equally possible that their peppers
were different varieties of red pepper that merely bore similar names
(or different spellings of the same name). It is known, for example,
that the words "tobasco/tabasco" were used as geographically
descriptive terms in the antebellum period to refer to peppers thought
to hail from the Tabasco region of Mexico, and that the words did not
necessarily refer to one variety.

Moreover, during the early 1800s a spice was exported in large
quantities from Mexico and was referred to geographically as
"tabasco," even though the spice in question was obtained from the
berry of the myrtle tree (indigenous to the Tabasco region of Mexico),
and not made from capsicum peppers at all. (This spice is now known in
the market as "allspice.") Thus, the geographic terms
"tobasco/tabasco" were used quite loosely during the antebellum
period. Later, in 1888, Edmund McIlhenny's pepper was officially
recognized by a noted American botanist and is now classified as
Capsicum frutescens var. tabasco.

Q: Does McIlhenny Company have exclusive rights to the trademark
"Tabasco" if "Tabasco" is the name of geographic and political
regions in Mexico?

A: Yes. Federal statutes provide, and federal courts have held, that
a geographically descriptive word can be protected as a trademark when
that word has acquired a secondary meaning.

"Tabasco" acquired a secondary meaning as a trademark as a result
of the public's association of "Tabasco" with a single
manufacturer, McIlhenny Company. Since the early 20th Century, federal
courts have held, and more recently affirmed, that McIlhenny Company is
the exclusive owner of the Tabasco mark. In addition, courts have
enjoined the infringing use by others attempting to trade on the
goodwill of the McIlhenny Company as symbolized by its Tabasco mark.

Q: Did Edmund McIlhenny first bottle Tabasco sauce in discarded
cologne bottles?

A: According to McIlhenny family lore, Edmund McIlhenny used discarded
cologne bottles to distribute his sauce to family and friends prior to
marketing it commercially. When in 1868 he decided to sell Tabasco
sauce to the general public, he ordered thousands of new "cologne
bottles" (as Edmund McIlhenny himself referred to them in business
correspondence) from a New Orleans glassworks. It was in these new
cologne bottles that Edmund McIlhenny first commercially distributed
Tabasco sauce.

Q: Is it true that archaeologists found the oldest known bottle of
Tabasco sauce while excavating the site of an Old West saloon in
Nevada?

A: No. Although an empty bottle of Tabasco sauce dating from the 19th
century was indeed excavated on the site of an Old West saloon, it is
not the oldest known bottle of Tabasco sauce. Earlier bottles have
been unearthed on Avery Island, Louisiana, at the site of the original
factory that produced Tabasco sauce. The Nevada bottle is nonetheless
an early bottle of Tabasco sauce that reveals much about who was using
the product and where they used it during the product's infancy.

Q: Is it true that Tabasco sauce was so instantly popular in Europe
that Edmund McIlhenny opened a London office in 1872 - only four
years after Tabasco sauce went on the market - in order to handle
intense European demand for his product?

A: No, this oft-repeated story is entirely untrue. Edmund McIlhenny
did not export any Tabasco sauce to Europe until late 1873/early 1874,
when he sent only a few dozen bottles to Europe in order to stir
interest in the product. He did not begin to export Tabasco pepper
sauce to Europe in large quantities until several years later.

Q: Is it true that a certain General Hazard, a federal administrator
in Louisiana during Reconstruction, helped to introduce Tabasco sauce
to consumers nationally by giving a bottle to his brother, food
distributor E. C. Hazard of New York City, who liked the product so
much that he sold it on a large scale for Edmund McIlhenny?

A: This story, which has been passed on orally for generations, is
partly accurate, but data has been found recently that helps to clarify
the matter. For example, although General Hazard did exist, he retired
from military service before moving to Louisiana; and he was a distant
cousin, not a brother, of food distributor E. C. Hazard of New York.
Regardless, because several elements of the story are factual, it seems
likely that General Hazard did have an actual role in introducing
Tabasco sauce to E. C. Hazard, who did indeed distribute Tabasco sauce
on a widespread basis for Edmund McIlhenny. On the other hand, two
persons besides General Hazard are known to have recommended Tabasco
sauce to E. C. Hazard - one of whom actually succeeded in convincing
E=2E C. Hazard to distribute the product.

Ultimately, the extent of General Hazard's role in introducing
Tabasco sauce to E. C. Hazard is unclear. It would be unrealistic,
however, to dismiss as mere coincidence the several correlations
between oral tradition and historical fact.

Q: When was the Tabasco trademark first registered?

A: It was not until 1905 that Congress passed an act providing for
federal registration of trademarks used in commerce between states.
This act provided that marks in exclusive lawful use for the ten years
proceeding the enactment of the statute were entitled to registration.
>From at least as early as 1880 until the late 1890s, the mark
"Tabasco" was in exclusive use by McIlhenny Company to identify its
pepper sauce. Consequently, as a result of the public's association
of "Tabasco" with McIlhenny Company as the single source of the
product during this period, under the doctrine of secondary meaning,
the "Tabasco" trademark was exclusively owned by McIlhenny Company.
Thus, use by third parties in the late 1890s and early 1900s were
infringing and unlawful uses.

In fact, John Avery McIlhenny, a former president of McIlhenny Company,
signed an affidavit, on the advice of his trademark counsel, stating
that - within the meaning of the Trademark Act of 1905 - McIlhenny
Company was indeed the exclusive lawful user of the Tabasco trademark
and entitled to registration of the mark under the 1905 Act. A 1920
decision of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of
Louisiana confirmed the accuracy of John Avery McIlhenny's affidavit.


Q: Was former McIlhenny Company president E. A. McIlhenny (1872-1949)
the first person to bring the South American nutria rat to Louisiana,
or to North America in general?

A: No. E. A. McIlhenny was at least the third nutria farmer in
Louisiana; at least the second nutria farmer in the state to set loose
the animals intentionally (another Louisiana farmer setting loose an
unknown number of nutria in 1937, several months before McIlhenny even
obtained his first nutria); and he never imported them from abroad, as
often claimed, but, rather, obtained his first nutria from a
pre-existing nutria farm below New Orleans. Regardless, he did have a
role in the animal's proliferation, operating a nutria farm on Avery
Island, Louisiana, from 1938 until his death in 1949 - a business
operation that had no ties to his position as president of McIlhenny
Company. During that period E. A. McIlhenny intentionally set loose a
large number of nutria into the south Louisiana wild. (It is untrue
that his nutria were first set loose accidentally during a hurricane.)
He also sold breeding stock to nutria farmers throughout North America.
It is interesting to note that as early as 1930 the State of Louisiana
began to encourage nutria farming among its citizens, and that in the
mid-1940s the State publicly announced its intention to release nutria
into a state-managed wildlife area near the mouth of the Mississippi
River.

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The TABASCO=AE marks, bottle and label designs are registered trademarks
and servicemarks exclusively of McIlhenny Company, Avery Island, LA
70513.


05/05