Our story
One farm, one recipe, given by hand.
Tornow's Tabasco started as a few plants and a family recipe, and it hasn't changed much since. Here's how a bottle comes together, from a greenhouse up north to a farm in Georgia, and eventually to someone's table as a gift.
Where it begins
It starts in a greenhouse.
The season doesn't begin with seeds in Georgia soil. The plants get their start at Josh Schuring Jr. Co. Greenhouses in Portage, Michigan, run by a nephew, then make the drive south. It's the one part of the process that happens off the farm.
Grown in Georgia
A full season in the sun.
On the farm the plants spend the whole season outdoors, ripening slowly and unevenly, green to straw to orange to a deep red. Nothing comes off the plant before it's ready.
Made by hand
Picked, mashed, and left to sit.
When the peppers are ready, the rest happens by hand, batch by batch.
Harvest
Picked at peak ripeness.
Mash
Salted and weighed.
Ferment
Slow, under airlock.
The recipe
Three ingredients, nothing else.
What goes in the bottle is printed on every label, because there's nothing to leave off.
What it becomes
A sauce and a powder.
The same harvest becomes two things: the pepper sauce, and a pepper powder made from the peppers and salt. Both are bottled by hand.
Never for sale
The sauce has never carried a price. It's a gift, and it's staying that way.
For years it's gone out to family and friends, a bottle at a time. That isn't changing. The merch is the only thing for sale, and it's simply how the people who love it help cover what it costs to grow.
The makers
One couple, one farm.
Behind all of it is a retired Air Force veteran and his wife, growing, mashing, and mixing every batch by hand in Georgia. No staff, no warehouse, no plan to get big.
