Avery Island and the TABASCO Factory
32 Wisteria Rd, Avery Island, LA
Avery Island, LA
A green rise of land over a mountain of salt, where the same family has grown peppers and aged TABASCO sauce in oak barrels since just after the Civil War.
Avery Island is one of Louisiana's most unusual and famous places, a lush green dome rising above the flat coastal marshes near New Iberia. It looks like an island because bayous nearly surround it, but its real secret lies underground: the whole rise sits atop an immense pillar of rock salt, one of several salt domes that dot the Gulf Coast.
For more than a century and a half the same family, the McIlhennys, has grown peppers and made TABASCO sauce here, aging the pepper mash in oak barrels much as they did in the 1860s. The island combines a working factory, historic pepper fields, and the neighboring Jungle Gardens into one of the most distinctive stops in Cajun Country.
What Guests Love
- Touring the TABASCO factory where the famous sauce has been made for generations
- Seeing the pepper fields and the oak barrels where the mash ages
- The neighboring Jungle Gardens with its live oaks, camellias, and bird sanctuary
- The surprising geology of a green island sitting atop a mountain of salt
Worth Knowing
- There is a small crossing toll to drive onto the private island
- The factory and Jungle Gardens are separate attractions on the island, so plan for both
- South Louisiana is hot and humid in summer, so morning visits and water are wise
- The pepper fields are most vivid in the growing season, though the factory runs year round
Details
Avery Island, LA
Learn about Avery Island and the TABASCO Factory
An island of salt
Avery Island is not floating on water but riding on salt. Deep below the surface lies a massive dome of rock salt, the remnant of an ancient sea, that has slowly pushed upward over millions of years, doming the land above it into the green rise visitors see today. Several such salt domes lie along the Louisiana coast, and this one has been mined for salt since at least the mid 1800s.
That salt has shaped the island's history. Its purity and abundance made it valuable, and during the Civil War the island's salt works supplied the Confederacy until Union forces destroyed them. The land had long been used by Native peoples for salt-making before European arrival, evidence of just how old and important this resource is to the region.
The birth of TABASCO
After the Civil War, Edmund McIlhenny began growing hot peppers on the island and experimenting with a sauce made from crushed peppers, the island's salt, and vinegar. He bottled his first batches of what became TABASCO sauce in the 1860s, and the recipe he settled on has changed remarkably little since.
The method is still recognizably the same. Ripe peppers are mashed with Avery Island salt and packed into white oak barrels, where the mash ages for a long stretch before being blended with vinegar, strained, and bottled. The McIlhenny family has run the operation continuously for generations, making Avery Island one of the great living stories of American food.
Touring the factory and fields
A visit takes you through the working TABASCO operation, from the greenhouse where seed peppers are grown to the barrel warehouse where the mash ages under a layer of salt, and on to the bottling and blending. Along the way you learn how a single family recipe grew into a sauce sold around the world.
The tour also includes the pepper fields, where the bright red peppers grow in season, and a museum, restaurant, and shop devoted to the sauce and its history. It is a rare chance to see an iconic global product still made in the same small place where it began.
Jungle Gardens and the wild island
Beyond the factory, much of Avery Island is a semi-tropical landscape of live oaks, bamboo, camellias, and azaleas, most of it within the neighboring Jungle Gardens created by Edward Avery McIlhenny in the early 1900s. He was a naturalist as well as a businessman, and he planted the gardens and worked to protect wildlife across the island.
One of his most lasting acts was building a refuge for snowy egrets, whose plume-hunted populations he helped restore. The bird sanctuary he created, known as Bird City, still draws thousands of nesting wading birds each spring, and the island as a whole is home to alligators, deer, and a rich birdlife amid the oaks and bayous.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Avery Island
Jungle Gardens
On the island
A semi-tropical garden of oaks, bamboo, and camellias with an egret sanctuary, created by the McIlhenny family.
New Iberia
About 8 miles northeast
A historic sugarcane town on Bayou Teche, home to the Shadows-on-the-Teche house and the setting of the Dave Robicheaux novels.
Rip Van Winkle Gardens
About 12 miles north
Gardens and a historic home on Jefferson Island, another salt dome, site of the famous Lake Peigneur collapse.