For generations, a Mexican family in Jalisco made a sauce called Cholula, naming it after the oldest inhabited city in Mexico. Cholula was made from the juice left over at the bottom of a popular fruit salad made with Seville oranges, limes, pomegranates and chilies.
The name Cholula is derived from the pre-Hispanic word Chollollan meaning ‘the place of the retreat’. With the Jalisco region famous for its tequila, Cholula hot sauce was used primarily in sangrita, a spicy nonalcoholic drink that locals serve as a chaser to rounds of homemade tequila.
The people at Jose Cuerva heard about the sauce, loved it and licensed the Cholula brand which they introduced to the United States in 1989.
After featuring only one sauce since 1889, in 2010 Cholula introduced three additional chili sauces which many took as a sign that the hot sauce market was continuing to grow.
Cholula hot sauce
