The Treasure on Avery Island

Louisiana is famous for its food and its cocktails, for its coffees and spices. But where do all these products begin? We (writer-photographer duo Kristy and Paul Christiansen) are on a mission to discover the origins of some of our most famous and unique locally-made products through the Country Roads series, “Made in Louisiana”. Read other "Made in Louisiana" articles here. 

Our continued pursuit of Louisiana-made products led my husband and me to Iberia Parish, where Avery Island serves as home to the iconic pepper sauce TABASCO®. After crossing a small bridge and getting directions from the entrance station, we headed to the ticket booth to begin our Avery Island Fan Experience. The self-guided tour begins in the TABASCO® Museum, which provides an extensive history of the hot pepper sauce and its creator, Edmund McIlhenny.

When McIlhenny moved to New Orleans in 1841 at the age of twenty-six, he likely had no idea he would one day develop a hot pepper sauce that would be revered by chefs, taken into battle inside soldiers' MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat), and grace dinner tables around the world. Today, TABASCO® Sauce is a kitchen essential, nearly guaranteed a place of honor next to every salt and pepper shaker. But its origins date back to a series of circumstances that put the right person in the right place at the right time.

Born in Hagerston, Maryland in 1815, McIlhenny was the son of a merchant, tavern keeper, and local politician who grew up to pursue a career in finance. After his move to New Orleans, he rose through the ranks, from bookkeeper to independent banker, and along the way married Mary Eliza Avery, daughter of a Baton Rouge jurist.

When McIlhenny moved to New Orleans in 1841 at the age of twenty-six, he likely had no idea he would one day develop a hot pepper sauce that would be revered by chefs, taken into battle inside soldiers' MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat), and grace dinner tables around the world.

His new in-laws owned an island south of Lafayette known as Ile Petite Anse, Cajun French for Little Cove Island. The remote property featured gentle hills rising to 160 feet above sea level, an uncommon feature in South Louisiana. Underneath the surface lay a salt dome built up over millions of years as an ancient body of water evaporated. Its depth is thought to penetrate deeper into the earth’s surface than Mount Everest extends skyward.

When the American Civil War broke out, both the McIlhennys and the Averys took refuge at Il Petite Anse, and while living there, McIlhenny planted a garden. The family’s oral history claims that after the war, McIlhenny returned to the island and found the last remaining evidence of his garden—some pepper plants—growing in a chicken hedge. His banking career in shambles, McIlhenny shifted gears and used his remaining pepper plants, mixed with the island’s salt and some vinegar, to create his first batch of hot pepper sauce. He called it “Tabasco,” a Mexican Indian word that means “place where the soil is humid” or “place of the coral or oyster shell.” Hoping to spice up the blandness of post-war food, McIlhenny bottled the sauce for family and friends in the only thing he could find—repurposed long-necked cologne bottles. By 1868, he produced his first commercial pepper crop and the TABASCO® Brand was born.

[Read Kristy Christiansen's "Made in Louisiana" story about Konriko Rice here.]

More than 155 years later, the product has changed very little. Only three ingredients make up the famed sauce—the hot red pepper known as Capsicum frutescens variety tabasco, salt mined from Il Petite Anse (which is today called Avery Island), and high-quality distilled vinegar. The peppers ripen until they turn a precise shade of red, matched against a little red stick, or le petit bâton rouge. They are then immediately picked, mashed, mixed with salt, and placed in white oak barrels for up to three years.

Touring the TABASCO® complex, we caught the sharp scent of the pepper mash before we entered the warehouse holding the oak barrels. Each one was covered in a layer of salt and then stacked up to six barrels high, where the pepper mash is left to age, a process that refines the flavor. Once completed, a McIlhenny family member will verify its perfection before the mash is sent next door to the factory.

The tour led us past a bamboo forest toward the far end of the factory, a red brick building with stepped gables reminiscent of Dutch design. Here, we continued our behind-the-scenes glimpse into the life of TABASCO® Sauce. The first of several large rooms featured the next step in the process, where the pepper mash is poured into 1,800-gallon wooden vats and stirred with vinegar for two to three weeks. The mixture is then strained to discard any pepper skins and seeds, tested, and finally bottled in signature TABASCO® bottles bearing the diamond logo. The massive bottling line was a flurry of activity, where staff kept a watchful eye over the conveyer belts shuttling TABASCO® bottles from one destination to another.

“Every bottle of TABASCO® Sauce is produced on Avery Island,” said Kate Neuhaus, director of Global Marketing Communications for McIlhenny Company, who went on to say that on any given day about 700,000 bottles are shipped worldwide (to almost 200 countries and territories).

The sauce’s path from a postwar consolation prize to global recognition is due, in part, to marketing genius. McIlhenny originally used horse and buggy to bring his bottles to New Iberia, where he would ship them out to New Orleans by steamboat by way of the Bayou Teche and Atchafalaya swamp. In 1870, a distant relative of the Avery family, John C. Henshaw from New York City, brought TABASCO® to cities across the Northeast and soon landed an agreement with E.C. Hazard and Company, one of America’s largest food manufacturers and distributers. From there, the TABASCO® Brand continued to grow. By the late 1870s, it was being sold through the United States and Europe.

“Since the brand was first introduced, we’ve been lucky enough to be included in pop-culture moments that have helped to make TABASCO® Sauce synonymous with certain foods and dining occasions,” said Neuhaus. “Not to mention we’ve built long-lasting relationships with chefs and members of the industry that have helped to make TABASCO® Sauce both a household and restaurant staple.”

Six generations later, TABASCO® is still family-owned and -operated and has expanded its TABASCO Family of Flavors® to include eight additional varieties to the original hot pepper sauce. It’s home base of Avery Island houses not only the factory and many of the workers but also an enchanting natural environment known as Jungle Gardens, where alligators lazily lounge alongside lagoons and nesting egrets prune feathers in the rookery that saved their existence. 

Visitors can tour both the TABASCO® factory and the 170-acre Jungle Gardens seven days a week. Tickets can be purchased online at tabasco.com.

Read other "Made in Louisiana" articles here.