Entire continents work without tabasco just fine. Would be a junior mistake trying to make some curry with it for example. Just like its a junior mistake putting in such headline, unless its click bait

If you don't respect tobasco you don't understand hot sauce. You don't have to like it, I find very little use for it and don't generally keep it around.

But their mastery of a complex and unpredictable natural process, and ability to consistently produce exactly the product they intend to, at this scale, decade after decade, is a nearly incomprehensible feat of food production.

And for some foods you exactly do want "spicy vinegar" which is pretty much their flavor profile. You gotta respect it to respect yourself.

No thanks.

The management decisions to scale up production take years to materialize on your food.

Even if you hate what you got out of a bottle you bought this week, that taste is not what made the sauce popular years ago. Popularity seems to cause a quality fade in everything that scales out of a single factory.

For example, the Sriracha from 7 years ago tasted totally different than today & it is the peppers that changed, not the recipe. Palo Alto fire fighters has gotten more cumin than chillis as the spicy stuff goes to the XX version. The Athabascan sauces I've loved from Alaska have slowly morphed sweeter and maple.

Tabasco for all its faults hasn't changed that much in the 20 years I've been having it.

Another thing I really like in hot sauces is the slight carbonation fizz you get from the still fermenting hot sauce which isn’t in Tabasco or for that matter in anything you can buy in stores.

https://theempirebuilderspodcast.com/244-pace-salsa/

Tabasco is OK, but Pace is the sauce that we always consume before it expires.

My main issue with Southern-style hot sauce like Tabasco is that it tends to be far too vinegar-forward for my taste. I strongly prefer Mexican-style sauces.