You may not have heard of Avery Island, Louisiana, but you’ve certainly heard of what is made there—Tabasco Pepper Sauce. For five generations, the McIlhenny family has made their famous hot sauce on the island.
In 1868, Edmund McIlhenny developed the recipe for Tabasco Original Red Pepper Sauce. The company is still family-owned and operated where it began—Avery Island.
According to the website, “the diet of the Reconstruction South was bland and monotonous, especially by Louisiana standards. So Edmund McIlhenny decided to create a pepper sauce to give the food some flavor and excitement.
“McIlhenny grew his first commercial pepper crop in 1868. The next year, he sent out 658 bottles of sauce at one dollar apiece wholesale to grocers around the Gulf Coast, particularly in New Orleans.”
He labeled it “Tabasco,” a word of Mexican Indian origin believed to mean “place where the soil is humid” or “place of the coral or oyster shell.” McIlhenny secured a patent in 1870, and Tabasco Sauce began its journey to set the culinary world on fire. Sales grew, and by the late 1870s, he sold his sauce throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Today it is sold in over 195 countries and territories, added to soldiers’ rations and put on restaurant tables around the globe. It is the most famous pepper sauce in the world.
Visiting Avery Island
When I arrived at lunchtime, I ate at 1868, a restaurant specializing in Louisiana cuisine including crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice, and bayou crab cakes.
I chose the crab cakes.
Next, I entered the Tabasco Brand Museum, which included family photos, biographies, advertisement examples and how the barrels for the hot sauce are made.
The second stop on the self-guided tour was a small greenhouse with pepper plants, followed by the barrel warehouse with barrels containing the hot sauce.
There were a few other stops, but the most impressive was the bottling plant. Thousands of bottles zoom around the plant where they are filled, labeled, and topped.
Jungle Garden
With admission, visitors are also invited to take a driving tour around Jungle Garden, which is alive with wildlife—alligators, deer, waterfowl and other birds.
Edward Avery “Ned” McIlhenny created the gardens. Born on Avery Island in 1872, Ned studied the plants and animals in the Avery Island area. Around 1895, he founded a private bird sanctuary known as Bird City to protect endangered snowy egrets.
Ned served the company as president for 51 years, from 1898 until his death.
The 170-acre garden was peaceful. Trees are draped with Spanish moss and the only sounds are bird song and idling cars full of tourists seeking the beauty of this paradise.
Ned decorated the garden with exotic botanical specimens from around the world. The garden opened to the public in 1935.
I am impressed with all that is offered to visitors on Avery Island—its product and the process to make it, the history, and the garden. You won’t be disappointed in your adventure even if you are not a hot sauce connoisseur.
Oh, don’t miss the Company Store filled with anything and everything you can add the Tabasco logo to.
For more information, click here.
