Tabasco

On Monday, we drove to Avery Island and went to the Tabasco plant.

Edmund McIlhenny got some pepper pods sometime after the Civil War, and he created Tabasco sauce. His family still operates the company today.

We learned how Tabasco sauce is made, and some of it was quite interesting! Capsicum pepper seeds are planted in January in greenhouses. In April, the seedlings are planted in the field. By August, the peppers reach the right shade of red and are hand-picked by workers who carry "le petit baton rouge" (a small, red stick). They only pick the peppers that match the shade of red painted on the stick because those are the ripest! These peppers are mashed -- the same day they are picked -- with some salt from Avery Island. They put the pepper mash in white oak barrels that they buy from Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels can only use each barrel once, so the Tabasco company scrapes out the insides of the barrels and puts the pepper mash inside. They can use the barrels for up to 100 years! And when they're worn out, they cut them up and sell them as smoking chips for barbequing. Back to the pepper mash: it sits in a barrel for three years. They put Avery Island salt on top of the barrel to keep any impurities from the air from getting inside. After three years, the mash is mixed with some vinegar, stirred for a month, and then it's packaged into the bottles that sit on many tables throughout the world! (Did you want to know how Tabasco sauce was made, or did you just want to chit chat?!)

And here's one of those bottles, except this one is HUGE!!!

Another part of the production story is that pepper seeds from plants grown on Avery Island are taken to South and Central America, where they can grow year round. The McIlhenny family seems to care a lot about how their product is made. I guess that helps it continue to be a high quality product.

Claire has a rock in her hand that she picked up outside.

We got to see part of the bottling process.

Tabasco sauce is shipped to over 120 different countries. These bottles were being produced to be shipped to the UK.

Here you can see three different types of Tabasco sauce.

I got to push a button and listen to music from the Tabasco Opera! Cool! (Or hot, I guess!)

Claire was in awe of how many Tabasco products she saw!

I like this sign! It makes me think of being in a huge van in Vegas for Ashley and Dave's wedding - in the summer - with an A/C that barely worked -- at the same time that people's high-heeled shoes were melting on the sidewalk because it was so hot!

Claire wanted to get much closer to this fish than the chains allowed her to.

We looked around the Tabasco Country Store primarily in shifts so that Claire could spend some time outside. We did try Tabasco sweet and spicy soft serve ice cream. I thought it was gross. It was definitely NOT a flavor I ever want to taste again in an ice cream!

We couldn't leave without buying a few bottles, so Jordan got three different flavors: Buffalo style, Garlic, and SWEET and Spicy.