Take trip to Avery Island, home of Louisiana’s famous hot sauce

Photo By Chuck Cannon | Snowy egrets nest at Avery Island's Botanical Gardens.  

FORT POLK, LA, UNITED STATES

05.18.2018

Story by Chuck Cannon 

Fort Johnson Public Affairs Office

AVERY ISLAND, La. — The spicy red sauce in the bottle with the little red cap, better known as Tabasco Red Pepper Sauce, has been around since 1868. This rock star in the world of hot is known around the globe. In fact, folks have been adding it to their food for a little extra kick and incorporating it into their recipes for 150 years.
If you are a fan, you’re in luck. This home-grown Louisiana product is produced just three hours from Fort Polk on Avery Island. The island is located near the town of New Iberia, about 15 minutes south of Lafayette.
Avery Island is home to the Tabasco Pepper Sauce factory, Jungle Gardens and Bird City, an annual nesting spot for snowy egrets and herons.
Visitors to the Tabasco Pepper Sauce factory can get a first-hand look at how the famous Louisiana seasoning is prepared and bottled, and learn the history behind the sauce’s creation by E.A. McIlhenny on the salt dome that is Avery Island. McIlhenny developed the recipe for Tobasco original red pepper sauce that has been passed down from generation to generation. To this day, the company is still family-owned and operated on that very same island.
The story of how the sauce came into existence, according to www.tabasco.com, is because the diet of the South during Reconstruction was bland and monotonous, especially by Louisiana standards. So McIlhenny decided to create a pepper sauce to give the food some flavor.
McIlhenny also loved to garden. He was given the seeds of Capsicum frutescens peppers from Mexico or Central America. He sowed the seed with much success and used the pepper as the base for his sauce.
The fact that he loved plants of all kinds led to the creation of Avery Island’s Jungle Gardens. McIlhenny, who traveled the world extensively as an explorer, writer, naturalist and conservationist, collected exotic plants during his jaunts overseas and brought them home to plant in his garden. Included in the gardens are Chinese and Japanese wisterias; Chinese timber bamboo; evergreens; pines; massive bearded oaks; lotus and papyrus from the upper Nile; papayas from the tropics; soap trees, junipers and crepe myrtles from India; nearly 1,000 varieties of camellias from around the world; and more azaleas than a person can imagine.
In the middle of the expanse lies a Chinese garden, complete with its own temple occupied by a statue of Buddha and surrounded by seven hills.
The Buddha was a gift to McIlhenny from a Chinese general who had allegedly looted the Shonfa Temple near Peking. According to legend, Emperor Hui Tsung placed the Buddha in the temple during the Tsung Dynasty between 960 and 1127 A.D.
To see all the blooms requires multiple trips to the island — camellias bloom from November to March; azaleas bloom from late February to late April; wisteria from March to May; and irises in March and April.
Scattered throughout the gardens are pools that are home to one of the area’s natives — the American alligator. Most visitors stop for a picture of the survivors of prehistoric times and it almost seems as if the alligators pose for the camera.
A highlight of the gardens tour is a stop at Bird City, home to thousands of nesting egrets and herons. The birds can be observed building nests and taking care of their young.
When touring the gardens, it’s important not to confine yourself to your vehicle — part of its beauty lies along the miles of hidden paths, paved with stepping-stones. There are plenty of places to park along the well-maintained roads.
Jungle Gardens and the Tabasco Pepper Sauce factory are located on La. Hwy 329 (Avery Island Road). From Fort Polk, take U.S. Hwy 171 South to Interstate 10. Take I-10 East to U.S. 167/U.S. 90 South. Follow U.S. 90 South to La. Hwy 329 to Avery Island.
Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under. There is a $1 charge per vehicle to enter the island.
For more information visit www.junglegardens.org, www.tabasco.com or call [phone].

• Date Taken: 05.18.2018
• Date Posted: 05.23.2018 10:06
• Story ID: 278077
• Location: FORT POLK, LA, US