Today is Wednesday. We went to visit the world headquarters of Tabasco....well worth the trip for anyone in the area. Avery island, where the business is located, isn't an island but a salt dome. It towers 150 feet over the marsh which surrounds it, well towers isn't the right word, but it is higher. The sauce was created in 1868 and the family still owns and runs it. The tour shows you potted pepper plants (the actual peppers are grown overseas from the parent plants here in La), large oak casks of squashed peppers in vinegar and salt that age for three years, large vats of pepper stuff getting stirred and finally the bottling plant. Very interesting to see. When we walked through the bottling plant at about noon, they had already bottled 200,000 bottles that day. We had lunch there, red beans with rice and sausage, and sat under huge live oaks with moss. A tiny tidbit, one of the family served with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders.
There are 170 acres of a land preserve and displays of interesting flora. But it was 90 and humid and the road was coarse gravel....not a picnic on a large bike with saddlebags. So we passed on that tour.
Our big purchase was a cooking apron for me;). And we got a bonus bottle of olives with Tabasco flavor. Alas this creates the issue of carrying a glass bottle for 3,000 miles. We shall do our best but there is a good chance everything will smell like olives by the time we get home.
Tomorrow we are off to New Orleans to see the WWII museum and have at least one meal at a restaurant we found there last time.
Remaining excitement today, laundry!
To expand any photo, just tap on it.
Very interesting tour. Here's a suggestion - stop by a UPS store and ship those olives home, or even to us. We promise not to eat them. 👍 nuce photos. Love pics of Stu smiling.
ReplyDelete