Avery Island is home to the internationally acclaimed hot sauce known as Tabasco. On the island is a plug of salt that is as deep as Mt. Everest is high. The island was owned by the Avery in-laws of McIlhenny, a banker with a taste for hot spices. He and his family have planted the cayenne peppers that are the main ingredient in the ubiquitous sauce.
Our tour guide told us the peppers are now grown in Central and South America. When the peppers match the color on the petite baton rouge (small red stick), they are ready for the first step in becoming hot sauce. They are ground, salted and barreled the day they are picked. Then they stay in Jack Daniel’s barrels for three years becoming a mash. The barrels are topped with a thick layer of salt to protect the contents from outside elements. Then the mash is mixed with vinegar and sits for twenty-eight days until it is ready for bottling into the various products Tabasco produces. The company produces 700,000 bottles per day in a four-day workweek.
A short film again explained the process and advertised their latest product, chipolte pepper.
After the tour we did sampling and shopping. Among the popular items to sample were jalapeno and tabasco raspberry ice creams.
In addition to bags of sauces, we bought our spicy lunches.
Edward Avery McIlhenny, a descendent of the founder, was, among his many interests, a birder. He was especially fond of the egrets that used the island as part of their flyway. He developed The Jungle Gardens along the flyway. We were in the wrong season to enjoy the plants of the garden, but we saw alligators, turtles and a large nesting of egrets.
Our leaders planned a lagniappe for us. We gathered near the Buddha temple to enjoy wine and story time. Peter, in his best California/Cajun accent, read Petit Rouge, Cajun Red Ridinghood.
We were all relieved when the alligator was brought down by a mouthful of Tabasco sauce and Petit Rouge found her Gram’mer.
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