NEW YORK, April 28 — Hot sauce aficionados, take note: To mark their milestone 150th anniversary, the makers of Tabasco sauce have created a special "reserve” batch and given it the champagne treatment.

The limited-edition Tabasco Diamond Reserve Sauce isn’t your regular Tabasco, a condiment that regularly dots breakfast eggs and punches up savoury Bloody Mary cocktails.

Like a fine wine or whisky, the McIlhenny Company, the Louisiana company behind the popular condiment, has created a premium batch of hot sauce made with the best Tabasco peppers on Avery Island in Louisiana — chosen for their colour, texture and robustness. The pepper and salt mash is aged for 15 years before being blended with sparkling white wine vinegar.

The result is a pepper sauce with a deeper complexity, says Tabasco.

To add a sense of ceremony to the special sauce, the Diamond Reserve batch is bottled in a fancy magnum-like champagne bottle, complete with gold label and gold-foil top.

A 6-oz bottle retails for US$34.95 (RM136.97). — AFP-Relaxnews