Tabasco Factory Tour

We stopped in Lafayette, Louisiana so we could visit Avery Island and take the Tabasco Factory tour, so Thursday morning, we drove the Jeep about 45 minutes to go on the tour...

The factory buildings

Tabasco is sold in, I think, 180 countries -- with 22 languages in their packaging.

Some of the 22 languages...

Hebrew (I recognize the language now, though I don't know what it says!)

In case you want to make the sauce yourself...

Oh? We didn't see any bears...

Patti outside the greenhouse...

Tabasco peppers in the greenhouse

Habanero peppers in the greenhouse

Le Petit Baton Rouge hanging in the greenhouse

The sauce cures / ferments for 3 years in oak barrels. The tops are covered with salt...

These particular barrels were packed just this month, 02/2020

New Orleans had a "parade of fish" at some point in the past years, and this was the contribution from the Tabasco company. Note that the fish is going for bait that is a Tabasco pepper!

Blending area - after the 3 years of curing/fermenting, the mash is mixed with vinegar and stirred for a couple of weeks.

They were bottling product while we were there...

A counter of the number of bottles so far today....

... and a picture 11 seconds later - 200 bottles in 11 seconds!

The closest line was bottling green pepper sauce...

...and it was going to Saudi Arabia!

 Some cautions / suggestions:

We decided that these bottles of sauce were too large to take with us on the bus!

For a giggle, you might want to remind yourself of a special Super Bowl commercial from a few years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZubL4mZ5n0

After the tour, we went to the "Country Store" and sampled several of the items. I am *not* a spicy food lover, so I stuck with the very mild options, but Carl tried a lot of the very hot items. We did not end up buying any, but they gave us some sample bottles on the tour and Carl is enjoying using them...