Avery Island, La.: Where Tabasco is the hot commodity

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Avery Island, La.: Where Tabasco is the hot commodity

Avery Island, La.: Where Tabasco is a hot commodity

A variety of Tabasco sauces are sold at the Tabasco Country Store on Avery Island.

Factory worker David Guy pours tabasco peppers into bins in fields where the peppers are grown.

Harvested peppers are stored in crates before they are taken and ground up at the end of each day's harvest.

Harold "Took" Osborn stands amongst barrels of aging pepper mash covered in salt that will be used to make Tabasco sauce.

The country store also sells a variety of Tabasco products, including Tabasco ice cream.

The tabasco peppers that are used in Tabasco sauce grow under oak trees on Avery Island, Louisana. E.A. McIlhenny invented the blend of peppers, salt and vinegar here after the Civil War, and everything on the 2,200-acre island belongs to his descendants.

Peppers are stored in wooden casks to age.

Tourists to Avery Island can also visit Jungle Gardens, a 250-acre wildlife refuge filled a multitude of plants, flowers, trees ... and the occasional alligator, too.

Visitors can smell the scent of tabasco as soon as they arrive on Avery Island.

Bottles of Tabasco sauce flow through the assembly line. The Tabasco factory fills about 600,000 bottles a day. The McIlhenny family still produces the famous condiment, which now generates $250 million in annual revenue, according to the just released book, "McIlhenny's Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire."

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A variety of Tabasco sauces are sold at the Tabasco Country Store on Avery Island.

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