Rice, Crawfish and Craft Spirits: A Taste of the Heart of Acadiana with J.T. Meleck Distillers

Our frequent trips to the Hub City have introduced us to unique aspects of south Louisiana’s economy, particularly the dominance of sugar cane in agricultural production and, more interestingly, the relationship between crawfish and rice farming.

In Louisiana, rice and crawfish often thrive in the same fields through a farming system that takes advantage of their different seasonal needs. Farmers typically plant rice in March or April, then seed the slightly flooded fields with adult crawfish a couple of months later.  The rice plants provide crawfish with food, shelter, and a place to reproduce, while crawfish contribute nutrients to the soil through their natural waste, helping support future rice crops.  

In July or August, the rice is ready to be harvested, the fields are drained and the crawfish burrow deep into the mud to escape the summer and fall heat and survive until the fields are flooded again. Soon after harvest the fields are reflooded, triggering the crawfish to return to the surface where they feed on leftover rice stalks, decaying plant material, and tiny organisms in the water until they are harvested from January through May. Many crawfish-rice operations rotate production between fields, allowing adult crawfish from one field to seed the next.

The Meleck family has been farming rice in the Heart of Acadiana for five generations starting in 1896, when John T. Meleck planted his first rice crop in 20 acres of marshland in south Louisiana. The family encountered many problems over the next century, including repossessions but in the early 1980s brothers Mike and Mark Frugé (great-nephews of J.T. Meleck) began rebuilding the family estate by leasing family land back. Starting with crawfish, they added rice back into the equation and eventually were able to repurchase the original estate and more. Much more. Today Frugé Aquafarms encompasses 3,500 acres, with approximately 1,700 acres devoted to each of crawfish and rice production utilizing the alternate year rotation approach.

During a recent visit to the farm, Production Manager Ed Guidry described the symbiotic relationship between the two crops and discussed the generations of Guidrys who had worked alongside the Frugés. He showed us the crawfish processing line where the crop is cleaned and sorted before moving the conversation to our primary interest—the farm’s vertical integration into distilling. Since 2000, the rice market has fluctuated with prices peaking in 2008 (because of a global food crisis) followed by a prolonged slump, with prices bottoming out in 2016. This instability necessitated adding more value to their rice crop. Mike realized that there was no American spirits brand producing a 100% rice whiskey or vodka and as an added benefit, a distilling operation would satisfy the the increasingly popular farm-to-table movement. In 2017, Mike founded J.T. Meleck Distillers and it now consumes 30% of the Frugé's overall rice harvest. 

The distilling facility sits adjacent to Frugé Aquafarms and uses two stills, multiple fermentation tanks, and a large cooker, with the stills used according to the type of distillation run.  Each batch starts with two thousand pounds of Frugé rice milled locally in Crowley - the Rice Capital of America. The rice is cooked for seven hours followed by seven days of fermentation for whiskey and 14 days for vodka. In a typical week, they use 10,000 to 16,000 pounds of rice with each individual distillation run taking 10-12 hours. This operation is managed by Ed and Distiller Brett Hebert - another veteran of Frugé Farms. 

Although most of the distillery’s current production is devoted to whiskey, as evidenced by the more than 2,000 barrels aging in its barrel house, vodka was its first spirit.  The J.T. Meleck Louisiana Rice Vodka ($24.99) is distilled to 191 proof before being slowly proofed down to 80 proof for bottling. Sweetness on the nose is followed by a creamy, vanilla wafer profile. Nicely done. 

In 2022, J.T. Meleck introduced the J.T. Meleck Small Batch American Rice Whiskey ($52.99) aged nearly five years in new American oak barrels. The whiskey comes off the still around 120 proof and after the oak aging proofed down to 96 proof at bottling. They also offer the J.T. Meleck High Proof 118 Small Batch American Rice Whiskey ($67.99) that I thought was a solid option to bring home. Because of its higher proof, adding a few drops of water helps soften the alcohol and bring out the dominant butterscotch and toffee followed by more subtle vanilla and chalky baking spices. This whiskey was awarded the Best Rice Whiskey in the 2026 American Council of Tasters (ASCOT) competition helping J.T. Meleck Distillers to be designated the  2026 Craft Distiller of the Year. Try this whiskey. Cheers. 

Jean Baptiste Spirits: Certified Cajun Heritage Distilled into Louisiana Rum

Louisiana has established several programs and designations to promote agricultural products that are made, grown, or processed in the state through its Certified Louisiana Logo program. These designations include Certified Louisiana, Certified Creole, Certified Craft Beverage, Certified Farm to Table, and Certified Cajun. To qualify for the Certified Cajun logo, a product must be representative of the culture of people generally of Acadian descent, and at least 50% of the product must be made, grown, produced, manufactured, processed, or packed in Louisiana. Jean Baptiste Spirits meets these criteria. Founder Tim Westcott's family has deep Cajun roots, despite his Irish surname, and the distillery sources its molasses and sugarcane within a 12-mile radius of its Broussard facility.

After a long career supporting the oil industry, Tim Westcott drew on his homebrewing experience and nearly 200 years of family tradition to establish Jean Baptiste Spirits, focusing on one of Louisiana's principal agricultural products: sugarcane. The brand is named after Westcott's seventh great-grandfather, Jean-Baptiste Honoré d'Estréhan de Beaupré, a pioneering sugarcane producer in mid-18th-century colonial French Louisiana. This Jean-Baptiste was also a close friend of Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, often called the "Father of Louisiana." At the time of his death, he was reportedly the largest producer of tafia, an early, relatively crude form of cane spirit. According to Westcott, Jean-Baptiste's daughter, Marie Marguerite Destrehan, and her husband, Étienne de Boré, inherited one of his sugarcane farms. In 1795, de Boré perfected the process of producing granulated sugar from sugarcane in Louisiana. These innovations helped make sugarcane profitable as a commercial crop, encouraging planters throughout the state to cultivate it on a larger scale.

The distillery currently offers two expressions of rum, both developed through recipes and production processes refined over time through meticulous experimentation. Westcott experimented with different yeast cultures and varying proportions of molasses and sugarcane in the mash bill. Ultimately, he determined that traditional Norwegian farmhouse Kveik yeast offered the optimal combination of flavor and fermentation performance. He also adopted a blend of molasses and sugarcane rather than following the more conventional approach of using molasses or cane sugar alone. Because blackstrap molasses has a relatively low sugar content, adding cane sugar helps provide the fermentable sugars needed for the mash. Both ingredients are sourced locally: the sugarcane comes from the Louisiana Sugar Cane Cooperative (LASUCA) sugar mill, while the blackstrap molasses comes from the C. S. Steen Syrup Mill.

Following a fermentation period of seven to ten days, the resulting wash is reportedly drinkable on its own, a characteristic Westcott discovered during assignments in Southeast Asia. Despite this, the wash proceeds to distillation, where it is brought to 103 proof using a small hybrid pot still. The resulting spirit is clarified through a bed of crushed pecan nutshells before being reduced to 82 proof and bottled as Jean Baptiste Silver Rum Select. This is unlike any silver rum we have tasted. Its character is closer to that of a rhum agricole, with pronounced herbaceous qualities and some grassy notes. The finish is clean, making it a highly approachable rum.

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the distillery was still in its infancy, used oak barrels were in short supply. However, J.T. Meleck Distillers, a local rice distillery, was able to provide Westcott with approximately a dozen used barrels that had weathered to varying degrees. Some leaked heavily, prompting Westcott to draw on a family tradition. He remembered his grandmother describing how the inside of barrels could be coated with molasses. The molasses penetrated the wood's fibers and helped solve the leakage problem. The results proved so beneficial that coating the barrels with molasses became a standard practice at the distillery.

This process contributes to the production of Jean Baptiste Rested Rum Reposée, which begins as the Silver Rum Select which is then rested for five to seven months in the molasses-coated barrels. The rum is then finished for at least another month in specially made, lightly toasted Louisiana bald cypress casks. Before bottling, it is brought down to 86 proof. This rum evolves gradually in the glass; it begins with the sweet, herbaceous character of Silver Rum Select before transitioning to subtle baking spices and pronounced dried-fruit notes. The additional maturation and cypress finishing create a distinctive expression that makes this an excellent sipping rum.

The final detail worth noting is the distillery's distinctive, cosmetic-grade bottle, another product of the supply challenges experienced during the COVID-19 era. This substantial bottle is topped with a Maltese cross, whose eight points symbolize the eight Beatitudes. The cross is associated with the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John, an order formally dedicated to Saint John the Baptist.  The current label includes the harvest year, although Westcott plans to introduce more non-vintage releases as production increases.

Cheers.

Southern Distillery Tour: Tennessee, Alabama & Louisiana

In early-mid November I embarked on a trip to Lafayette making sure I visited as many distilleries as possible - particularly those that offer a rum expression. 

Drop Zone Distilling, Knoxville Tennessee

This veteran founded distillery offers a company of whiskies, moonshines, flavored moonshines, and other spirits -- including a cane-based rum. Here's their origination story:

"Rod 'Sarge' Parton is on a journey to introduce everyone to the real authentic unadulterated taste of hand-crafted Moonshine made famous from the back hills of Pittman Center, TN by his grandfather and great-grandpap as far back as 1930’s. Rod’s grandfather had a small store up on the river where other shiners would come and get supplies to keep them from having to travel into town and be seen. Rod’s grandfather started making Rye Moonshine in the late 1960’s for a different flavor from the traditional corn-based shine most everyone was making. Rod has now taken the recipes from his great-grandpap’s corn based and his papaw’s rye-based moonshine and perfected the taste of both into Gold Medal Winning very smooth enjoyable shine made for sipping and telling stories around a campfire."

Drop Zone offers three Moonshine expressions based on this family history with the Drop Zone - Legacy 110 Proof, Drop Zone Legacy 135 Proof, and the Drop Zone - Mountain Rye. I purchased a bottle of the rye moonshine in order to savor the moment - great texture, subtle spice and pepper, and easy finish. I also purchased a bottle of the Drop Zone Classic Rum which provides herbaciousness and earthiness - traits not associated with molasses based rums. 

I also need to mention the "Jump Master" Series with an American Single Malt Whiskey, a Rye Whiskey, and a Bourbon Whiskey. All are solid expressions. 

Sweet Home Spirits, Leeds Alabama

Continuing on through our Southern Spirits Tour, I stopped into a relatively new operation located just south of Birmingham, Alabama in the town of Leeds: Sweet Home Spirits. Name after the iconic song of the South and carrying on the tradition of the Swampers of Muscle Shoals this distillery seeks to exude Alabama culture and a love of one’s home. That is why founder Austin Creel, along with his partners, have created Alabama-style whiskies using various mash bills of Rye, Malted Barley, and Corn.

I arrived during their launch of Sweet Home Divided Bourbon encompassing 68% yellow corn -- all sourced from Creel's family farm in Hamilton. Combined with 21% Rye and 11% Malted Barley this Bourbon is finished with charred pecan wood chips to emulate The Heart of Dixie. Very unique. Their signature whiskey however, is the Sweet Home Whiskey, using a 75% sweet corn, 21% rye and 4% malted barley mash bill and aged in various American toasted oak casks. If you ever thought of a crushable whiskey, this is it.

My flight also consisted of the Campfire Whiskey and Cask Strength Bourbon Whiskey. The former is produced by soaking cinnamon sticks into the Sweet Home Whiskey whereas the Cask Strength has a similar mash bill but bottled at 120 proof. A couple drops of water tempers the heat and allow the vanilla and other baking spices to rise.

Wildcat Brothers Distilling, Lafayette Louisiana 

Gator Cove is our home base during our trips to The Pelican State and we are well versed on their regular expressions as well as their limited edition offerings. Particularly through cocktails. However, their newest rum is the limited edition L. Ferrer. This 4-year dark rum was aged in virgin, charred American white oak barrels - replicating the process of aging bourbon.  I'll let the distillery explain "the story behind Wildcat Brothers' new rum, L. Ferrer, draws inspiration from a tantalizing legend about the infamous pirate Jean Laffite. Laffite, a notorious figure in the Gulf of Mexico, was deeply involved in smuggling and privateering, building a reputation as a bold and clever outlaw. After his supposed death in the early 1820s, rumors persisted that he had not truly perished, but instead faked his demise to escape the authorities and his enemies. According to legend, Laffite adopted a new identity, living out the rest of his days as Lorendzo Ferrer in peaceful obscurity." During my three nights visiting Gator Cove, this was a popular option both over ice and in bottle sales. 

Louisiana Spirits Distillery, Lacassine Louisiana

The Bayou Rum Distillery is located about an hour west of Lafayette and was instituted to bring Louisiana rum to the world. From the outset, production has been managed by Cuban born and second-generation rum maker Reiniel Vicente Diaz. His father Omar Vicente was Master Blender of a Cuban rum distillery for 15 years before relocating to the Dominican Republic where the younger Reiniel worked alongside him at the Oliver & Oliver rum company. 

When visiting I recommend the short self guided tour in the media room - paying close attention to the photos and wall posters. Then on to a flight which consisted of eight samples in my case. This starts with the Bayou® White Rum - the core of the portfolio - distilled using their pot still and proofed with triple filtered fresh local water. The Bayou® Pink provides more berry and floral notes with the addition of  local mayhaw berries. Getting into the aged rums, they were all solid expressions starting with the solera Bayou® Reserve Rum aged in ex-bourbon barrels for up to four years. The Bayou® Single Batch #3 is equally unique maturing in California red wine barrels for five years.  

The Bayou® XO Mardi Gras was actually the rationale behind my visit as it was one of two American rums mentioned by Ian Burrell in the American rum chapter of his latest book: Rum A Tasting Course: A Flavor-Focused Approach to the World of Rum.  The rum was matured in bourbon barrels for up to five years and then finished for one additional year in Spanish Pedro Ximenez sherry barrels. Just a fantastic expression - incorporating the orange, fig, and nut characters of the sherry.

The flight finished with three notable expressions starting with the Bayou® Spiced Rum that was inspired by Louisianan Creole baking and  includes three styles of natural vanilla, cinnamon and sweet figs. Then there are the two Gator Bite Louisiana Liqueurs. The Satsuma + Rum offering is sweet oranges - hitting all the Curaçao components. The Coffee + Rum is exactly what you would expect. I envision quick espresso martinis. 

NOËL Family Distillery, Donaldsonville Louisiana 

The NOËL Family Distillery is located just 25 feet above sea level on the banks of the Mississippi, about 35 miles south of Baton Rouge. This is a father-daughter team that graduated from the Moonshine Academy together in order to start a distillery producing rum from molasses and  sugar cane processed at the nearby Cora-Texas Mfg. Co plant in White Castle.  Although centered in Donaldsonville, Chip Noel travelled the globe as a jet pilot whereas daughter Natalie remained local studying marketing at ULL and earning a M.B.A. at LSU. Both visionaries to start a distillery.

On my visit Chip walked me through ta curated flight of their current portfolio, excluding the canned cocktails and Tequila which is made from a proprietary blend of lowland and highland Blue Weber agave in Jalisco, Mexico.  I started with their Rare 6YR Reserve Rum distilled from high-test molasses. Unlike traditional molasses, high-test molasses is not a byproduct of sugar production, but rather a product that is produced instead of sugar. Sipping from home, I can observe dried apricots, caramel, vanilla and an easy finish. The distillery also has a 6YR: Tequila Cask Finished Rum that is distilled from Grade-A molasses and aged in white American oak and finished in ex-tequila barrels. Grade A molasses is the highest quality molasses and most desirable grade, characterized by its good flavor, good color, and minimal defects. This expression is also highly complex with an interesting butterscotch character. 

The flight continued with a Charcoal Filtered Vodka and the Pickle Flavored Vodka. This last was not a favorite of mine, but apparently is with the younger crowd. On the other, I also purchased a bottle of the Charcoal Filtered Vodka which is a fresh clean spirit made from 100% American corn and as the name suggests, charcoal filtered to remove any impurities. The final offering in the flight was a soon to be release Rhum Agricole distilled from cane juice and having all the funky herbaceous notes you expect from this process. Will need to return to add this rum to our collection. 

Perdido Vineyards (Boogie Bottom Spirits), Perdido Alabama

To say the Perdido Vineyards has been a pioneer in the Alabama craft beverage industry is such an understatement. They do hold winery license #1 as the first farm winery in The Heart of Dixie. In fact, founders Jim and Marianne Eddins (who started growing muscadine grapes in 1972) worked with the legislative sponsors to enact the Alabama Native Farm Winery Act of 1979. Prior to this legislation, wineries could only sell to state stores, wholesalers, or out of state and not to retailers and consumers.  In 2002, the couple expanded their operation to include wine vinegars, then fortified wines, cider, and eventually distilled spirits through Boogie Bottom Spirits.

Whereas the winery specializes in many Muscadine expressions, I focused on the fortified wines and spirits. learning all about their various wines, rum, and brandy.  For instance, the rum is made from Alabama sugar cane harvested and processed by farmers who are located very close to the estate. The Joe Cane Rhum Agricole is made straight from the cane juice and is as earthy and funky as expected. The Shipwreck Alabama Rum is their entry level expression with a distinct creamy body and is named after a reputed rum runner and his story, known as the “Whiskey Wreck”.  The 100 proof Blue & Gold Alabama Rum provides more vanilla than the 80 proof Shipwreck and packs a little bite.

As for the fortified wine, I sampled the Satsuma Orange and the Marianne Sherry Style and purchased a bottle of the Marianne to join the Shipwreck on my drive home. I selected the first because I wanted to mentally compare it to the Bayou Satsuma + Rum and it has a similar strong citrus component with a very approachable and lengthy finish. The Marianne (obviously named after Marianne Eddins) was a complete surprise, it is equivalent to the Oloroso style with the muscadine flavors achieving more of  nutty and fig character.  

John Emerald Distilling Company, Opelika Alabama

John Emerald Distilling is a small craft distillery located in downtown Opelika - located in eastern Alabama just northeast of Auburn.  The distillery was founded by former home brewers and father and son team John and Jimmy Sharp in 2015 becoming the first post-prohibition distillery in Alabama. That's a century of illegal stills operating in The Heart of Dixie. The operation is named after John’s Father and honored with their flagship spirit: the Alabama Single Malt Whiskey - a single malt whiskey made in the American Single Malt style and the first whiskey to be legally made in Alabama in 100 years.

The offer spirits from multiple spirits categories and I started with three rum samples starting with Sarah's Silver Rum which is made from local pure cane syrup from Headland, Alabama and dark moncovado cane sugar from the Mauritius Islands. The later is is a type of unrefined cane sugar that retains a significant amount of molasses, resulting in a rich, dark brown color and a robust, almost bitter flavor. Gene's Spiced Rum starts with the Silver and is augmented with Alabama Pecans, Madagascar vanilla beans, Indonesian cinnamon sticks, and star anise pods from Southern China. I came home with a bottle of Spurgeon's Barrel Aged Rum which was the first rum made in Alabama and is barrel aged in their used single malt whiskey barrels for two years. This is a must buy for rum collectors. 

I concluded the tasting with a sample of their Casa Esmeralda Anejo. This agave spirit is made from 100% blue weber agave and aged one year in a white oak barrel. A very smooth offering to close our the tour. 

Grape Spotlight: Louisiana Blanc Du Bois from Landry Vineyards

Pierce's disease is a bacterial disease caused by Xylella fastidiosa, which lives in the water-conducting system of grapevines and is spread from plant to plant by sap-feeding insects. Glassy-winged sharpshooter, an exotic plant pest, is a key vector. Symptoms of Pierce's disease in grapevines include leaf scorch, where leaves become yellow around the leaf margins or between the veins, and the outer leaf area may dry suddenly while the rest of the leaf remains green. Affected leaves are less vigorous and smaller than healthy leaves. 

Grape growers in the Southeast and Texas are susceptible to Pierce's disease primarily because of their humid climate. Native muscadine grapes are mostly resistant to the disease but not Vitis Viniferia or French Hybrids. Enter Blanc Du Bois. Researchers at the University of Florida’s Leesburg Research Station, began a program to create a new grape that was fully resistant to Pierce's disease. Led by Dr. John Mortenson, in 1968, the team was able to develop a complex hybrid grape from crossing a Florida-developed muscadine hybrid (Florida D 6-148) with the Cardinal (a Vitis vinifera L.) table grape. They called this new white grape Blanc Du Bois, after Emile DuBois, a noted grower who emigrated from France to the U.S. in 1882.  As a wine grape, it is known to create white wines with floral and citrus flavors with decent acidity. 

Blanc Du Bois is now found in parts of Texas as well as Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana. In the Pelican State, Jeff Landry has been cultivating Blanc Du Bois since he founded Landry Vineyards in 1999. The winery and estate used to be located in eastern Louisiana, but moved post-Katrina to West Monroe, in north-central Louisiana, where the soils, hills and climate are more suitable to growing wine grapes. In the new estate, they cultivate 16 acres of vines, specializing in Blanc Du Bois, Lenoir/Black Spanish and Crimson Cabernet (I envision a few more spotlights).  Over the past 20 years, they have improved the quality of the their grapes through canopy management, cover crops, composting, leaf pulling, and other vineyard practices -- many from recommendation from Viticulturist, Fritz Westover.

I purchased this Landry Vineyards Louisiana Grown Blanc Du Bois ($13) while in Lafayette and this Louisiana Certified Craft Beverage is dry and flavorful with a floral aroma and citrus profile. There's also depth which hints at some type of oak treatment. Would only ask for a little more acidity - otherwise a pleasant wine at a very reasonable price. 

Navigating the Bayou Teche

A bayou is a body of water typically found in a flat, low-lying area. It may refer to an extremely slow-moving stream, river (often with a poorly defined shoreline), marshy lake, wetland, or creek.

The Bayou Teche is the most famous bayou in The Pelican State, curling for miles through south central Louisiana, west of the Atchafalaya Swamp.  This bayou runs through multiple parishes and there are several notable towns that were built along the Bayou Teche such as Breaux Bridge (the crawfish capital), St. Martinville (of Evangeline fame), New Iberia (home to rice, sugar cane and TABASCO), Charenton (the site of the Chitimacha Indian reservation, noted for its exquisite double-walled cane baskets), Patterson (Louisiana Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum) and Morgan City (home to the first submersible oil drilling rig, the Mr. Charlie).  And let's not forget Arnaudville, the home of Bayou Teche Brewing.

The brewery was founded in 2009 by brothers Karlos, Byron and Dorsey Knott within a converted old rail car near the banks of the Bayou Teche. Their goal is to brew beers that complement the unique foods and lifestyles of South Louisiana. This includes offering brewery tours in French and English and naming most of the beers in Cajun French in an effort to help preserve and promote the native language. These beers include LA 31 Acadie, name in memory of their Acadian homeland in Eastern Canada; LA-31 Bière Pâle, brewed to pair with dishes savored in South Louisiana (boudin, crab and shrimp gumbo, fried catfish, sauce piquant); and LA 31 Cocodrie DDH IPA, where Cocodrie is Cajun-French for alligator. Many of these beers are prefaced with LA-31 which honors part of the Bayou Teche National Scenic Byway which shadows the Bayou Teche from Arnaudville to Morgan City.

On our visit I paired a delicious pizza with a flight containing the LA-31 Bière Pâle, LA-31 Swamp Thing IPA, Ragin' Cajuns Kölsch, and a Zwickelbier. I love the Pale Ale, the brewery's flagship, brewed with pilsner and oats, slightly hazy, and with a decent supply of Mosaic and Citra hops. The Swamp Thing is a very clean and drinkable "Louisiana-style" IPA brewed with Mosaic, Citra and Chinook hops. How could I not try the Kölsch - one of my favorite styles and this one "made to represent the culture and heritage of Acadiana and the University of Louisiana: ça va mieux avec des amis - It's better with Friends." Finally the Zwick or Kellerbier is a very refreshing unfiltered lager brewed for German Fest. 

Avery Island & TABASCO®: Where Bourbon Barrels Find Rest

"TABASCO® Brand products are made by McIlhenny Company, founded by Edmund McIlhenny in 1868 on Avery Island, Louisiana. It was here that he developed the recipe for TABASCO® Original Red Pepper Sauce that's been passed down from generation to generation. To this day, the company is still family-owned and -operated on that very same island". -- TABASCO® Brand Website

During this trip to Cajun Country we allocated time to visit the TABASCO® Brand Factory Tour & Museum, located southwest of New Iberia on Avery Island. This is not an island in the traditional sense. Instead it is one of five salt domes formed as the weight of younger sediment pushed up a column of salt deposited over 165 million years ago creating a topographic rise. Locally, the geological formation is known as “island” because of its height relative to the neighboring land and insular appearance from a distance.  The five islands are also surrounded by salt marshes, cypress swamps, and\or bayous. Over the last two centuries these island have served as wildlife sanctuaries as well as salt and petroleum fields. Not without mishaps. During a visit to Jefferson Island and their gardens we learned of the Lake Peigneur catastrophe. 

Before the Civil War, Hagerstown Maryland born Edmund McIlhenny was a successful and wealthy independent bank owner married to Mary Eliza Avery -- who's family lived on a plantation house on Avery Island. By the end of the war and with the South's economic collapse, McIlhenny had lost everything. He and Mary Eliza moved in with her parents on Avery Island where McIlhenny started experimenting with Capsicum frutescens -- now known as Tabasco peppers. His goal was to invigorate the bland southern cuisine with a new pepper sauce.  

"McIlhenny grew his first commercial pepper crop in 1868. The next year, he sent out 658 bottles of sauce at one dollar apiece wholesale to grocers around the Gulf Coast, particularly in New Orleans. He labeled it “Tabasco,” a word of Mexican Indian origin believed to mean “place where the soil is humid” or “place of the coral or oyster shell.” McIlhenny secured a patent in 1870, and TABASCO® Sauce began its journey to set the culinary world on fire. Sales grew, and by the late 1870s, he sold his sauce throughout the U.S. and even in Europe".

While today the production process is mostly automated and the peppers are grown worldwide , the recipe and process are relatively the same as in the early years. Only the oak aging takes a little longer. The peppers are crushed and the mash is stored for three years in white oak barrels (which previously held bourbon or whiskies).  The inside of each barrel is de-charred (top layer of wood is removed), torched, and cleaned, to minimize the presence of any residual whiskey. In addition, the barrels are rehooped with stainless steel rings.. Once closed, the barrel tops are then sealed with salt to form a natural protective barrier that also allows for the release of gases produced during the slow fermentation process. After three years the mash is mixed with distilled vinegar and stirred occasionally for a month. The resulting liquid is strained to remove skins and seeds and then bottled as a finished sauce. 

The McIlhenny Company produced only the original version up until 1993, when the company released the Green Pepper Sauce. Today they have nine varieties, all conveniently available for purchase at the TABASCO® Country Store.  This store is located next to the museum entrance where the self-guided walking factory tour begins.  The entire Avery Island Experience which includes the factory tour and Jungle Gardens & Bird City driving tour is highly recommended.