Avery Island Getting Bigger Better Tabasco Visitor's Center

The higher ups at Avery Island's Tabasco plant are listening to what guests want! They will be building a bigger and better Tabasco visitor's center, and now offer an expansion of tours revolving around cajun culture.

The first time I visited Avery Island, I was awestruck because I honestly do love Tabasco that much, and seeing and hearing about the process of how it's made truly fascinates me. Now, I've learned, it's about to get even better!

“They (Tabasco visitors) wanted to see peppers, get out in the fields and see the peppers growing,” said Angie Schaubert, senior manager of brand sales at Tabasco.
“They will get a bird’s-eye view and smell the pepper sauce,” Schaubert said, adding with a laugh that the smell can be rather overpowering.
Peppers are grown only for a few months out of the year, she said, so visitors will see peppers growing in different stages, including the planting process at the greenhouse.
“It’ll be a real experience and not just a 15-minute tour,” Schaubert said. “There’ll be a lot more to see.”

The new visitor's center is set to open in the summer of 2015.

Not only are they upping the ante with the visitor's center, but the parking lot will also be enhanced, and a new cafeteria will be built. The cafeteria will have a wrap around porch, and Cajun cuisine like jambalaya, boudin, and crawfish étouffée will be served.

Something that Tabasco has recently started is food tours. The tours happen every Tuesday through Thursday, and take visitors in vans and buses to different places to give them not only the taste of true Cajun food, but a history lesson about the food they'll be eating.

“We travel with you and go into the community,” she said. “We explain fishing for crawfish, for instance, then eat crawfish or discuss boudin and then sample boudin, show you how to eat it. It’s not just going to six venues and eating, but you learn about Cajun culture.”

The tours last for 3 and a half hours, and must be booked by noon on the day that you wish to go.

Even for a local, this sounds AMAZING! I know for out of towners, it will be truly breath taking!