A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from July 05, 2017
“We’ve been married so long we’re on our second bottle of Tabasco”

Tabasco sauce is a hot sauce that many people buy, but seldom use. “We’ve been married so long we’re on our second bottle of Tabasco” is a joke that has been printed on several images. The joke has been cited in print since at least 1963 and 1968.
 
Americans are eating hotter foods than they did in the 1960s and the joke is mostly dated.
   
“We’ve been married so long we’re on our second bottle of Worcestershire sauce” is another, lesser-used version of the Tabasco saying.
       
     
Wikipedia: Tabasco sauce 
Tabasco sauce is a brand of hot sauce made exclusively from tabasco peppers (Capsicum frutescens var. tabasco), vinegar, and salt. It is produced by McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, Louisiana.
           
18 December 1963, The Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ), “On the Town With Vic Wilmot,” pg. 54, col. 2:
And Jimmy (Navarre’s) Thomason laments that you’ve reached the twilight years when the wife buys your household’s second bottle of Tabasco!
     
30 June 1968, Sunday Star-Bulletin & Advertiser (Honolulu, HI), “Herb Caen of San Francisco,” TV Aloha, pg. 21, col. 2:
Wilma Wright knows a couple that’s been married so long they’re on the second bottle of Tabasco.
 
Google Books
The Reader’s Digest
Volume 96
1969
Pg. 44:
... about the couple that’s been married so long— they’re on their second bottle of Tabasco.
   
Google Books
Washington State Bar News
Volume 25
1971
Pg. 22:
Local P.I. columnist Emmett Watson reports that John Rupp, general counsel for Pacific Northwest Bell, repeating a San Francisco quip, commented: “They have been married so long that they are on their second bottle of Tabasco sauce.
 
6 February 1983, Washington (DC) Post, “Grenada, Lost in Space & Time” by Milton Bass, pg. E2, col. 1:
YOU KNOW ABOUT the couple who were married so long that they were on their second bottle of Tabasco,
     
Google Groups: rec.food.cooking
Grilled peaches [Was: HOT sauces]
Ian Staples
6/2/94
(...)
Stephanie, I think you have just ruined the old adage “They’ve been married so long they’re on their second bottle of Tabasco sauce.”  😉
   
Google Books
The Matzo Ball Heiress
By Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Don Mills, ON: Red Dress Ink
2004
Pg. 294:
“When I was your age there was a popular expression,‘The marriage is on its second bottle of Tabasco.’ That meant the marriage has lasted, through better or worse.”
 
Twitter
Sue-Lin Tin‏
@noodlesue
OH Boh Hope joke: “We’ve been married so long, we got a second bottle of tabasco”
6:19 PM - 23 Sep 2009
 
Twitter
JoeInnaKeys‏
@JoeInnaKeys
Replying to @robpegoraro
@robpegoraro Southern Localism-“John & Susie married so long they’re on their 2nd bottle of Tabasco Sauce—
10:18 PM - 19 Oct 2011
 
Twitter
Kelly Broomfield‏
@KellyWasHere
Replying to @WendyLiebman
@WendyLiebman My mom said you knew you’d been married too long when you were on yr 2nd bottle of Tabasco sauce.  Maybe she meant ketchup?
11:39 PM - 31 Oct 2011
 
Twitter
JoeyBats4Me 🇨🇦‏
@mitchel_susan
Replying to @Studio420Ben
haha. My dad had a joke: “We know we’ve been married a long time b/c we just bought our 2nd bottle of tabasco sauce” 😊
5:34 PM - 5 Dec 2016
 
Google Books
The Bloody Mary Book:
Reinventing a Classic Cocktail

By Ellen Brown
Philadelphia, PA: Running Press
2017
Pg. ?:
Years back a definition of longevity was being so old that you had to buy a second bottle of Tabasco sauce. But Americans today like their food spicy, not only including but especially their Bloody Marys.
 
The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada)   
From stubborn price tags to candle wax: A plant-based solution for those sticky situations
LAURA CALDER
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Jul. 04, 2017 2:41PM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Jul. 04, 2017 2:41PM EDT
(...)
I gave one of my bottles to a neighbour and put the other away on a shelf, remembering that old joke about the definition of a long marriage: when you’re on your second bottle of Tabasco. (Here, probably, was another bottle to fit that bill.)

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityFood/Drink • Wednesday, July 05, 2017 • Permalink


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