Avery Island is the home of The Boy's favorite sauce, Tabasco.
It's obviously not just his favorite sauce. Tabasco has a royal warrant, which means that it has been purchased for use by the Queen of England for at least five years. Queenie has good taste!
We, of course, went on the official tour and learned all about how the sauce is made. It starts with small Tabasco peppers (like the ones on display outside the factory):
The peppers are picked at the peak of ripeness, crushed and mixed with a small amount of salt. The mash is stored in oak barrels and topped with a protective layer of salt.
The mixture ferments for three years, before being strained and mixed with pure vinegar. It's stirred for another 28 days, then bottled in its spicy goodness for sale.
On a side note, workers use these petit baton rouge - little red sticks - to select perfectly ripe peppers. They simply match the pepper's color to the stick.
After the tour, we headed to the Country Store for samples galore:
Including jalapeno ice cream (!). Caution - it's a very slow burn:
Tabasco makes more products than you can shake a petit baton rouge at:
After our tour and shopping, we set off exploring the Island (which is actually a salt dome). The McIlhenny family (the creators and sole owners of Tabasco) have set aside 250 acres as a Jungle Garden.
The garden is full of alligators:
And our guys really enjoyed getting up close and personal:
Too close if you ask me:
And we were constantly - ummm - under surveillance:
But we also found an extremely old oak tree called The Cleveland Oak (named after the former president):
As well as a 900-year old Buddha statue:
And a bird sanctuary:
One thing the non-gator hunting women quickly learned that making a trip to southern Louisiana during July isn't the best idea. We were hot. And tired. And sweaty.
But hot, tired and sweaty aside, it was a GREAT trip!
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