D, believe it or not, is one gallon of the stuff.
Posted on 06/29/2002 11:54:45 AM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Archaeologists digging at the site of a black-owned saloon in a historic Old West mining town have unearthed a 130-year-old bottle of hot sauce.
The oldest style of Tabasco bottle known to exist was reconstructed from 21 shards of glass excavated from beneath the site of the Boston Saloon of Virginia City.
The bottle suggests that the saloon — which was owned by a black man from Massachusetts and catered to blacks and whites from 1864-75 — was among the first eateries to introduce the now-popular spicy sauce.
``The Tabasco bottle is particularly intriguing because of what it implies about African-American cuisine and the development of the West,'' said Kelly Dixon, administrator of the Comstock Archaeology Center who is supervising the dig about 20 miles southeast of Reno.
``This was an exotic product and Comstock African-Americans were apparently the ones breaking this new ground,'' Dixon said.
Edmund McIlhenny, a New Orleans banker, began blending aged red peppers, salt and vinegar to create the Tabasco brand pepper sauce in 1868 on Avery Island, La.
McIlhenny Co. officials say the sauce maker first used discarded cologne bottles to hold his sauce but soon was making his own bottles specifically for his product.
``This discovery helps us fill the earliest chapter of our company's history,'' said Shane K. Bernard, a Tabasco sauce historian and curator of the company archives.
The Comstock Mining District was one of the richest sources of gold and silver ever discovered.
The Boston Saloon site is behind the Bucket of Blood Saloon, which was established in 1876 and still stands at the corner of D and Union streets. Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, got his start a block away at the local newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise.
An excavation two summers ago yielded roughly 30,000 artifacts in an effort to learn more about the estimated 100 blacks who lived in the bustling mining town of 20,000 in the 1870s.
The owner, William A. G. Brown, was believed to have been born as a free black in 1833. He arrived in Virginia City in 1862.
``In general, a mining camp like that may be perceived as a white phenomenon,'' said Ron James, Nevada's historic preservation officer. ``But there were a lot of (black) business owners who were well known and much respected. One ran for mayor. Another fellow was a doctor practicing for well over 10 years.''
Dixon said they earlier determined that customers at the Boston Saloon ate more lamb and essence of ginger than at other Virginia City saloon.
The bottle itself appears to be a ``Type 1a bottle ... one of the earliest forms of Tabasco bottles, distinctive because of its embossment and sharp shoulders,'' said Ashley Dumas, a graduate student at the University of Alabama who directed excavations at the original Tabasco factory in southwest Louisiana.
Dumas said McIlhenny found the bottles would break easily at the sharp shoulder so he soon switched to the round-shouldered bottle known today with the red and white label.
``Because this bottle dates to about 1870, it may be a form of bottle even earlier than the classic Type 1a,'' she said.
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On the Net:
McIlhenny Co.: http://www.tabasco.com/
Nevada State Historic Preservation Office: http://www.nevadaculture.org
Virginia City Chamber of Commerce: http://www.virginiacity-nv.com/
D, believe it or not, is one gallon of the stuff.
The juice is good eh?
I get you more juice......
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Tabasco sauce and mayo are great on a Chick-fil-A sandwich. No Chick-fil-A's are in metro Detroit, unfortunately. :^(
For those who don't know, Avery Island is not an island in normal terms. It's several miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico.
Giant salt plugs squeeze up along the coast, and as they do, they lift the ground on top of them. Avery Island may be all of 20 or 30 feet higher than the surrounding flatland, but you can see it for quite a distance.
The Tabasco bottling plant is located there, and makes a nice weekend excursion. It's not too far from the lake where Texaco was drilling a gas well and caused the entire lake to drain down the hole they accidentally punched into a salt mine (in a different salt plug).
The solution is a product from Tobasco called Hot Seasoning Salt. I haven't seen it sold up north here but I get it out of Atlanta. Chicken, seafood, eggs, etc., it is good on everything.
And I'm havin' trouble finding a job.
FMCDH
What? This happened without the "Rainbow Coalition"? Impossible. Kudos to the early black citizens of Virgina City.
Of course, Tobasco improves the taste of ice cream.
I wonder if the Cartwrights ate there?
Kewel! That's good for about a week for me. :-)
YUCK - who would want a gallon of that stuff????
Give me Marie Sharp's or Melinda's. Crystal is better than that stuff. Gives me the idea of what kerosene would taste like.
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