Schellhase 2023 Gulf Coast and Southwestern RV Travels: 9 May 2023

Knocked one off my bucket list today. We visited the Tabasco Pepper Sauce factory on Avery Island Louisiana! I have wanted to visit here for years and today was the day. From our campground it was 41 miles east and then south, and it took us right at 50 minutes.

The drive down through Lafayette and down highway 90 was brutal. The roads are horrendous, some of the worst I have ever driven on. We said more than once we were so glad we were not pulling the trailer and it would have rattled it to death. As we approached Avery Island we passed many rice fields. The area is very wet and the heat and humidity would undoubtedly be great for not only rice but peppers of all kinds.

The Tabasco area of Avery Island is gated and we were greeted by a very nice gentleman who provided our parking pass and directed us to the parking area. The campus is over 170 acres and there are many buildings and water processing facilities nearby.

Beautiful, huge live oak trees abound.

The main Tabasco factory

They opened at 0900 hrs and we arrived at 0901. We owned the place. There were just two cars in the guest parking lot and one truck in the lot by ours. The bus/RV lot was completely empty.

This is what it looked like when we left! The entryway was full, the outside waiting area was full and there was a line of kids extending into the parking lot waiting to enter! Several school buses and a tour bus had arrived and both parking lots were at capacity! Glad we planned ahead!

The Tabasco Pepper Sauce factory tour is a self-guided tour of primarily 10 stations. Just past the registration window is Station #1 which is the Tabasco museum.

The complete history of Tabasco is illustrated there including the McIlhenny family, the evolution of their pepper sauce and history of Avery Island. Edmund McIlhenny first created his pepper sauce in the late 1860's and the process remains virtually unchanged today. The tabasco peppers (capsicum frutescens) are significantly hotter than the cayenne pepper commonly used to make other pepper sauces. They are picked when they are the perfect shade of red and then they immediately crush them, mix them with salt, and age the mix in white oak barrels for up to three years. Then they blend the mash with vinegar for two-three weeks and then strain it to remove the skins and seeds. After that the pepper sauce is bottled and shipped worldwide!

The ingredients: Water, natural vinegar, Avery Island-mined salt and pepper mash

If you have ever eaten an MRE, you likely had a tiny bottle of Tabasco in the package!

Tabasco bottles and cartons from 1920 to present day

In 1890 John McIlhenny, the eldest son, took over the company and modernized the business but then resigned to join the cavalry, the Rough Riders.

We finished up in the museum and then using these signs, walked a few hundred yards to #2 and #3.

As outdoor display of a 1921 Ford Model T "Huckster" truck

Entrance to the bamboo forest, part of a large outdoor nature display

Station #2 was the greenhouse where various peppers were growing, to include the tabasco, habanero and jalapeño. Each was described in detail

Tabasco peppers

Habanero peppers

Jalapeño peppers

Station #3 was the barrel aging facility. A video was played that showed the barrel making process, replacing the iron hoops with stainless steel, testing for leaks, etc.

The staves, the heads (top and bottom) and the hoops hold them together

Sample barrels on display

Actual barrels of mash aging here. Notice the salt on top of the barrels

To get to Station #4 we walked back all the way to the other end of the main Tabasco factory building. This is the blending station. After the mash has aged for two-three years it is brought here and "blended with vinegar. The motors visible stir the mix intermittently for two-three weeks and then it is strained. The skins and seed are sold to other businesses for use in everything from candy to medicine.

Station #5 , also located in the factory, was a display on Avery Island and it's history.

Pepper pickers in 1903!

Station #6 is the salt mine experience. Salt evaporated from brine springs on Avery Island since 1791. In 1862 workers enlarged the springs to produce salt for the Confederacy but at 16 feet they hit solid salt. They mined salt here until Union forces destroyed the salt works in 1863.

Station #7 is the bottling line and today we saw a lot of Tabasco Green Jalapeño Pepper Sauce. They were bottling various sizes of this today.

Station #8 is the food, flavors, Tabasco today display. There were displays of various international foods that are flavored with Tabasco, a map showing the worldwide distribution.

One interesting display here was the history of the Tabasco bottle. Inventor Edmund McIlhenny originally bottled his condiment for family and friends in used cologne bottles. When he started commercial production, he ordered new cologne bottles and used them to market Tabasco sauce!

We finished up the tour in the gift shop where many different Tabasco-related items were sold, such as shirts, hats, koozies, etc. They also have a free tasting bar of all of their sauces as well as new flavors that are being evaluated.

The tasting bar

Doreen stylin' with some "hot" spectacles

New flavors

Samples of Tabasco-flavored ice cream. It was really good!!

Tabasco also offers cooking classes and a food tour for an additional charge. They have a restaurant on site and they also have an extensive Jungle Garden and Bird City, also for an extra charge. We called it a day and headed back to the campground to prepare for our departure tomorrow.

Doreen did a couple loads of laundry while I fueled the truck and picked up lunch. We could not leave the area without sampling some of the boudin and cracklin's, local cajun favorites! Boudin is cooked pork with onions, peppers, seasoning and cooked rice, then stuffed into a casing like sausage. Cracklin's are fried pieces of pork fat with layers of meat and skin still attached. They are deep fried and become crispy and golden. They are sold in meat markets, specialty shops and even gas stations in the area.