Tabasco Factory & Avery Island Gardens

Today we headed down to the Tabasco factory, which is located on Avery Island. Avery Island is often referred to as an island, but it is technically a salt dome located in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. It is about three miles inland from Vermilion Bay, which connects to the Gulf of Mexico.

We started the tour at the museum where we learned about the history of Tabasco sauce, which has been made by the McIlhenny family since 1868.

We stopped at the greenhouse next, where we were able to see displays of jalapeños (1000-4000 Scoville heat scale) Tabasco (30k-50k Scoville) and habanero (100k-350k Scoville).

Next we stopped in the barrel aging section. They barrel the Tabasco sauce in White Oak barrels for three years before they’re sent off to production. The barrels are covered with salt, which is convenient because they are sitting on a salt dome. The salt helps keep the Tabasco sanitary during aging somehow but I didn’t quite understand that.

We were able to see the production area where they’re bottling the sauce and labeling it. It was pretty neat. They make a lot of sauce each day.

Lastly, we stopped in the country store where you can buy bottles of Tabasco of all kinds of flavors along with T-shirts and souvenirs. They also have a tasting bar where you can sample up to 15 different flavors of Tabasco. We tried almost every single flavor, although some of them were quite hot. We bought a few bottles to take home with us, including - salsa picante, jalapeño, sweet chili and chipotle.

Our tickets also included a drive-through of the gardens on Avery Island. All of this land is owned by the family and back in the day, I’m sure it was just gorgeous with all of the ponds and flowers and bamboo. It still is pretty with all the huge oak trees and Spanish moss.

There is Egret sanctuary, where the birds come every spring to build their nest and raise their young, check out the last video. I have never seen so many birds all at once it was crazy!Read more