Louisiana: Go To Avery Island for The Pepper Sauce and Much More
Snowy egrets perch on platforms surrounded by water at Bird City, part of Jungle Gardens at Avery Island. SCROLL to the bottom of this page to see a gallery of 20 photos!
Check out the label for Tabasco brand pepper sauce the next time you’re adding a little kick to your jambalaya or catfish po-boy. In between where it says McIlhenny Co. and Tabasco, the logo lists the source of the sauce in red type—Avery Island, La. That’s the Tabasco birthplace and its home base for more than 150 years.
Woody and Betty Tircuit from Baton Rouge suggested this trip and even drove us there. They patiently waited while we shot photos for our travel journal. We had a great time with them and endorse their recommendation to go to Avery Island.
LUNCH AT 1868 RESTAURANT
We arrived on Avery Island at lunchtime and headed straight for the 1868 restaurant, which takes its name from the year Tabasco pepper sauce was invented by Edmund McIlhenny. Today, McIlhenny Company continues to be owned and operated by his descendants.
At the restaurant, you go through a line to order your food, which includes spicy Cajun dishes and classic Southern comfort food. The fun part comes when you get to your table and have a chance to try all the flavors of Tabasco pepper sauce. We tested the options and found the Habanero and Scorpion sauces to be the hottest—scorching hot!
TABASCO MUSEUM AND FACTORY TOUR
Tickets ($5.50 per person) for the “seed-to-sauce” factory tour can be purchased at the Tabasco museum, which is also the first tour stop. You can pay the Jungle Gardens and Bird City fee at the same time ($8 per adult and $5 per child). We received a 10 percent discount for all members of our group thanks to Woody being a veteran (a colonel in the U.S. Air Force). Woody, thanks for your service and the discount!
The museum provides an excellent overview of how Tabasco pepper sauce was invented and how it has been produced and marketed over the years. The self-guided factory tour includes many surprising facts that include:
McIlhenny Company teams with planters worldwide to grow most of its tabasco peppers on fields generally five acres or smaller. Seed stock produced on Avery Island and selected from plants chosen by a McIlhenny family member is entrusted to growers in Central America, South America and Africa. All pepper mash produced from these crops is shipped to Avery Island.
The mash ages in barrels for up to three years before finally becoming Tabasco sauce.
The next step of blending occurs in huge vats and requires three weeks of stirring.
The bottling and shipping steps only happen Monday through Thursday.
The Tabasco factory tour gives fans a chance to show their love for the world-famous pepper sauce.
JUNGLE GARDENS AND BIRD CITY
Avery Island features a beautifully preserved nature sanctuary that was created by the McIlhenny family. There’s no doubt that you’ll want to include Jungle Gardens and Bird City in your visit. They are spectacular. We’ve visited many wildlife refuges and state and national parks, but this sanctuary stands apart from others because of the diversity of nature experienced and how well maintained it is. Jungle Gardens includes fun trails through healthy forests, many ponds and streams, and an unusual mix of plants and wildflowers. Bird City blew us away because of the high number of snowy egrets choosing to make the island their home.
The value that the McIlhenny Company has long placed on environmental protection is clear in its messages presented during the factory tour and through its actions with the nature sanctuary. For example, Edward Avery McIlhenny founded a bird colony on the island in 1895, which later became Bird City, after hunters slaughtered egrets by the thousands to provide feathers for ladies’ hats. Edward raised a small batch on egrets in captivity and then released them in the fall to migrate across the Gulf of Mexico. The following spring the birds returned to the island with others of their species. It began a migration that continues today.
Linda leads Betty and Woody Tircuit of Baton Rouge on a nature trail bordered by bamboo in Jungle Gardens.
Woody and Betty visit Jungle Gardens, a destination on Avery Island that they recommended touring.
An alligator crosses in front of us during our tour of Jungle Gardens.
ARLA’S SHOCKING MOMENT
Arla: The warning signs about alligators in Jungle Gardens got me thinking—somebody could get attacked by an alligator here. At first, I shrugged it off as the McIlhenny Company being overly cautious. Within minutes, we spotted our first gator while shooting photos of a scenic pond. Doug almost walked up to one because it was partially hidden in a tree’s shade. He grabbed a shot of the gator before I strongly encouraged him to back up. I thought he might personally violate the rule about not feeding the alligators by surrendering a hand or foot to the creature.
When we returned to our car, another gator came out of the bayou and crossed the road in front of us. Exciting times in Jungle Gardens! I didn’t need to turn my imagination loose here. The alligators did it for me.
Linda’s Takeaway
As a Louisiana native, I enjoyed learning about a product invented in my home state that has become something used around the world. I knew that Tabasco sauce comes from Louisiana, but I didn’t know how it got started or where every bottle comes from. The self-guided factory tour went through details of each step in the production process. It amazed me how much work goes into making a sauce that seems so simple. Some of the steps reminded me of how wine is made.
I also liked the exhibits at the Tabasco Museum that included creative uses for the sauce, but my favorite exhibit was Barbie wearing a sweatshirt with a Tabasco logo.
DOUG’S HISTORICAL FEATURE
Doug: Only five years before Edmund McIlhenny invented Tabasco pepper sauce on Avery Island, Civil War action took place there, with the strategic value being the salt dome that McIlhenny needed for his pepper sauce. On May 4, 1862, workers for the Confederate army had hit solid salt after only 16 feet of digging. Salt mining, the first of its kind in North America soon began there, but the Union army showed up April 17, 1863, and destroyed the mine. Before its destruction, the mine produced 22 million pounds of salt for the Confederacy, which was a key ingredient in producing gunpowder.
Gee Whiz Facts
The brand name Tabasco comes from the tabasco pepper, which is a variety of the chili pepper species. These peppers turn bright red when fully ripe.
Avery Island is not an island in the traditional sense. It is located inland a few miles from the nearest body of open water. From a distance, it looks like an island because it rises above the surrounding wetlands—flat coastal marshes.
Avery Island is named for the Avery family that settled there in the 1830s. Tabasco creator Edmund McIlhenny joined the Avery family, by marrying Mary Eliza Avery, daughter of Daniel Dudley Avery and Sarah Marsh Avery. The island has been owned for about 200 years by the interrelated Marsh, Avery and McIlhenny families.
In the 1980s, the U.S. military chose Tabasco sauce for inclusion in its new MREs (meal, ready-to-eat) and eventually two-thirds of all MREs contained a miniature bottle of Tabasco sauce.
