Tabasco on Avery Island

After leaving the swamps, Bryan told us to stop here for a great lunch. Bryan said, "Us Cajuns, we eat enything. Crawfish? We suck out the heads. You tink you never ate them? If you had crawfish etouffee you ate the heads. " It was a great lunch, in spite of the name.
Watch how tabasco is made - a narrated slideshow:http://tabasco.com/tabasco_history/avery_island.cfm#targ

We drove a half hour south to the Tabasco factory on Avery Island. It didn't look like an island on the map, but we did cross a small bridge to the salt marsh that is home to the most famous hot sauce.

The pickers carry a small painted red stick to compare the color of the peppers. The peppers must be a bright shade of red to be ripe, and the human eye does not have good "color memory", so they carry " la petite baton rouge" as a visual aid.

Once picked, the peppers are washed, mashed, then stored in barrels for 3 years to age. The barrels have a hard salt cover to keep dirt and insects from entering. The salt is mined on the island, and poured over the barrels where it forms a hard cement-like cover.

After storage, salt and vinegar are added, and it is stirred for 28 days, then bottled. They bottle over 720, 000 bottles a day and ship it to 160 different countries.
It is labled in over 22 languages. The day we visited, they were bottling for shipments to France.

Their marketing is genuis. A short film reminds us to place the Tabasco on the table with salt and pepper. The company store has a long wall of products with Tabasco in the ingredients. There is chili, ketchup, mustard, jellys, and several versions of their hot sauce. We sampled a new raspberry chipotle sauce (not fruity enough), tabasco ice cream (not my favorite), and tabasco cola (surprisingly good).



Charley's favorite product - SPAM - Hot and Spicy style.