Taste The Louisiana Heat
On restaurant tables and store shelves across the world, you can find Tabasco pepper sauce, which traveled all the way from Avery Island, Louisiana to be there.
The historic brand's fans and heat seekers flock to Avery Island, almost on the Gulf Coast shoreline, just to see how the tangy sauce is made.
The first thing to note is that Avery Island is not an island. It's a salt dome that appears to rise up like a steep hill not easily found in Louisiana. The highest point is 163 feet above sea level and is two and a half miles across for a total of 2,200 acres. The solid rock salt column is thought to be deeper than Mt. Everest is tall.
The land, with hearty soil and valuable salt, was home to Native Americans for thousands of years. Part of Ile Petite Anse (now Avery Island) was claimed by land grant recipient Dr. Antoine Coiron in the late 1700s, and he was soon followed by other French and Spanish settlers. In 1818, New Jersey native John Craig Marsh purchased the bottom half of the domed area for sugarcane planting. By 1849, he sold his estate to his son George Marsh and two sons-in-law, Ashbel Burnham Henshaw and Daniel Dudley Avery, who was the husband of Marsh's daughter Sarah Craig Marsh. D. D. Avery bought out Henshaw a few years later, and the island eventually became known by his name.
Edmund McIlhenny was born in 1815 in Hagerstown, Maryland, and he moved to New Orleans in 1841 (aged 26) to enter the booming financial industry. He was a prosperous independent banker when he met Mary Eliza Avery, the daughter of D. D. Avery, and they married in 1859.
The Civil War upended life in the South and left once burgeoning cities in financial ruin. The Averys and McIlhennys were unsure of what their future would hold as their various interests were no longer viable. What happened next is highly debated.
McIlhenny began growing Capsicum frutescens on Avery Island, but it is not clear where he got the seeds or plants from originally. There are stories about how a Mexican-American War veteran named Gleason gave the seeds to McIlhenny, while some say maybe it was a Confederate soldier. Perhaps even McIlhenny came across the pepper plant already growing on the island after it was blown in from a neighboring property.
Several researchers have pointed to Irish immigrant Col. Maunsel White, owner of Deer Range Plantation, as the person who began growing these peppers in the area and making a pepper sauce with them. He also gave away seeds to friends. Though there is no known direct link between Col. White and McIlhenny, there are some distant professional links between the Averys and White.
Col. White sold bottles of Concentrated Essence of Tabasco Pepper in New Orleans stores before McIlhenny created the Tabasco brand. Edmund wrote to his wife Mary in 1870, "Mr. Henning has the M.W. for sale. [It is] indifferently put up, and I was surprised to find that the colored pulp settles down more than half, leaving a muddy looking fluid above. There is a row of it on Henning's shelves just beneath mine, and the contrast in style and appearance is decidedly in my favor, and Henning says he sells 25 of mine where he sells one of the M.W."
McIlhenny harvested the first commercial crop of peppers and officially founded The McIlhenny Company in 1868. McIlhenny's recipe was different from other sauces in that he macerated the peppers, mixed the pulp with salt, and aged it in de-charred whiskey barrels sealed with salt. The aged mash was then mixed with high-quality distilled vinegar, strained, and bottled. The peppers were plucked from the plants based on their vibrant red color if it matched the tone of a red-painted stick, which is still used today.
Tabasco spread like wildfire over the nation and internationally. Cities along the Gulf Coast were the first recipients of McIlhenny's Tabasco pepper sauce with 658 bottles being sold in 1869. Distant Avery relative John. C. Henshaw marketed the sauce in the Northeastern U.S., and he secured an order for 10,500 bottles in 1872. Currently, about 700,000 bottles are filled daily.
A visit to the factory takes you through a museum filled with Tabasco history and memorabilia. You can enter a greenhouse to see the peppers up close, marvel at the warehouse full of barrels, then take a whiff of the aromatic blending room. On weekdays, visitors can see the bottling process in action. McIlhenny family members run the company and ensure quality and consistency to this day.
After experiencing some history, you can head to Tabasco Restaurant 1886 for some Tabasco-infused food and Bloody Marys. Tabasco-infused ice cream is a great way to cool off in the warmer months. The second part of the Avery Island experience is a drive around the gorgeous Jungle Gardens, created by McIlhenny's son Edward Avery McIlhenny when he took over for his brother John in 1898.
Edward, a prolific adventurer and wildlife enthusiast, worked to preserve bird populations on Avery Island that were in danger of becoming extinct. He transformed 170 acres of Avery Island into a wildlife sanctuary and a place to grow exotic plants he collected from the world over. Driving around the sprawling Jungle Gardens allows you to experience thriving wildlife and see the unique texture of the salt dome. Bird City teems with egrets and other migratory fowl during the warm months, but you'll see alligators, rabbits, and deer year-round.
Avery Island is a unique piece of Louisiana culture and enterprise.
