Lea & Perrins made a sauce so bad they abandoned it in a cellar — aged into a global brand

In 1837, chemists John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins in Worcester, England, were commissioned to recreate a sauce that a local nobleman had encountered while in India. They mixed the ingredients according to the recipe and produced a batch that was so pungent and overpowering that it was considered completely inedible.

Rather than throw the failed batch away, the chemists pushed the barrel into a corner of the cellar and forgot about it. The sauce sat there for approximately 18 months, aging and fermenting in the dark.

When Lea and Perrins needed space in the cellar around 1838, they rediscovered the barrel. Expecting the same unpleasant mess, they tasted it — and found it had transformed into a rich, savoury, perfectly balanced condiment. The fermentation had mellowed the harsh ingredients into something entirely new.

They bottled it as 'Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce' and released it in 1838. It was an immediate success. Imported to the US in 1839, by the 1870s its label was being counterfeited, forcing the company to add signatures as a trademark. The brand passed through HP Foods (1930), Imperial Brands (1967), Danone (1988), and Kraft Heinz (2005). The original Worcester factory still produces the UK version, aged 18 months.