Tabasco sauce is a brand of hot sauce made exclusively from tabasco peppers, (Capsicum frutescens var. tabasco) vinegar and salt. It is produced by the McIlhenny Company of Louisiana. Originally all peppers used in Tabasco sauce were grown on Avery Island. Today peppers grown on the Island are used to produce seed stock, which is then shipped to foreign growers, primarily in Central and South America. More predictable weather and readily available farmland in these locales allow a constant year-round supply. This ensures the availability of peppers should severe weather or other problems occur at a particular growing location. The original red Tabasco sauce has a shelf life of five years when stored in a cool and dry place; other Tabasco flavors have shorter shelf lives. Tabasco brand pepper sauce is sold in more than 180 countries and territories and is packaged in 22 languages and dialects.The Tabasco bottle is an original design and has remained almost unchanged up to the present. At first, I was shocked to see McIlhenny’s world-famous tabasco sauce in Cuba. I guess local importers found a way to get it through another country like Mexico despite the current embargo. In Cuba a good indicator for…

Cubans Ready To Welcome Influx Of American Visitors. TODAY CUBA – It will be the largest number of American tourists to arrive in Cuba since the 1959 Revolution. The increase is expected to exceed the 50% of visitors who have already made their bookings. While authorizations for all kinds of travel and transportation companies are multiplying in the U.S., moving beyond the tourist blockade of the island, Cuba is declaring that the last quarter of 2015 could beat all records in U.S. tourism since the Revolution given that so far and despite visa restrictions American tourist presence has increased by 50%. An absolutely clear signal is that hotel chains have started to work out agreements with the almost 20,000 privaterooms that provide cheap accommodation in Cuba, by hiring beds to which tourists will be redirected when they have no space. These agreements are quite unprecedented since private rooms for rent are – at least in theory – illegal and up to this point the big chains had never dealt with the issue except to criticize these accommodations where necessary. 70% of these unofficial rooms are located in Havana. The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has already approved the lifting of the…

I remember that I had a entrepreneur friend, Roberto Arévalo, who in the 1970s purchased vintage cars in Argentina and then sold them in the United States for a big profit. He would have probably tried to do the same thing in Cuba if it had not been for the embargo. Cars from the 1940s and 1950s, still make up a significant form of transportation in Cuba. With the recent improvement of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, there is a fascinating is new a television series about the country's old cars. "Cuban Chrome is a groundbreaking new docu-series that explores the fascinating time warp that characterizes Cuban car culture. This is the first American television series to be produced entirely on location in Cuba and will be simulcast in English on Discovery Channel and in Spanish on Discovery en Español." "After the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the subsequent United States embargo, it has been illegal to import American cars to the island nation -- as a result, Cuba's vintage American vehicles are frozen in time. For Cubans, these cars are not just a means of transportation, but a way of life. Cuban Chrome will give viewers an intimate look…

Despite the travel limitations imposed by the U.S. government, there has been a 54 percent increase in the number of visitors from the United States during the first six months of this year. A lot of people have skirted the travel restrictions by first going to countries like Mexico, Costa Rica, the Bahamas or Jamaica, and then on to Cuba. According to the Ministry of Cuban Tourism 88,996 Americans visited Cuba between January 1, 2015 and July 26, 2015. This is without counting the 164,368 Cuban Americans who traveled to the island during the same period of time. In 2014 only 57,768 visitors came from the U.S. It is predicted that by the end of 2015 almost four million tourists will have visited Cuba with around 150, 000 coming from the U.S. Indeed the country is becoming more and more popular due the improved relations with the U.S. and the fact that it is safe for Americans to travel there. Furthermore, it is widely believed that many of the tourists who traditionally visit Cancún, the Mayan Riviera, the Dominical Republic or the Bahamas will now visit Cuba instead. Tourism is one of the mainstays of the Cuban economy and it…