South Louisiana is known for its Cajun culture, spicy foods, and melting pot of cultures. But you may need to realize that it is also home to one of the most successful family-owned companies in the United States. McIlhenny Company’s world-famous Tabasco® sauce emerged during the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) on Avery Island, Louisiana. Avery Island, formerly known as Petite Anse Island, is home to three major industries: salt, oil, and Tabasco® sauce. Purchased by John C Marsh in the late eighteenth century, the island and company are still exclusively owned and maintained by descendants of the original Avery-McIlhenny family.
John C Marsh’s son-in-law Judge Daniel Dudley Avery of Baton Rouge, purchased a portion of the island and focused the area’s economy on sugar cane before the Civil War. But it would be Avery’s younger son, John Marsh Avery, who expanded the island’s salt mine industry, eventually discovering the first rock salt in the United States. This discovery would provide a substantial opportunity after 1861, supplying salt to the Confederate Army due to the Union Navy port blockade.
Valuing Avery Island’s salt mines, the Confederate Army sent troops to guard the island and, within eleven months, quarried approximately 30,000 tons of salt. Soon after the Union discovered the salt-based island, a land-based attack with forces under Union General Banks destroyed the salt works. All mining operations ceased until after the war, and the family fled the island to seek refuge in Texas.
The McIlhenny family returned to ruins after the war, along with John Marsh Avery’s sister (Mary Eliza) and her husband, New Orlean banker Edmund McIlhenny. Unfortunately, the rich soil torched, and the salt works shelled beyond repair. While the island was uninhabited during the final two years of the Civil War, the farmland suffered neglect, except for a unique strain of pepper plants that continued to grow in what was once Judge Avery’s kitchen garden. McIlhenny cultivated the first Tabasco® pepper crop to flavor the bland food available during Reconstruction. In addition, he experimented with turning the peppers into pepper sauce, thereby launching a new business venture in hopes of restoring the family accounts to their prewar levels.
McIlhenny created a special pepper sauce with three simple ingredients, peppers, salt, and vinegar, and experimented with a process similar to today’s operation. The product was in no way an overnight success. It required time, labor, resources, and, most importantly, customers to launch this new product in the recovering markets after the Civil War. McIlhenny delivered 1,000 bottles of Tabasco® sauce to wholesale companies in the first year to gauge interest for orders the following year. This business tactic was bold and calculated but proved enormously successful.
Next, McIlhenny Company set about perfecting the process of turning garden peppers into an industry. To make the sauce, crush the peppers, strain the mash, and add salt and vinegar. A similar fermentation process to whiskey follows:
Placing the pepper mixture into white-oak barrels.
Covering the tops with a thick layer of salt to filter out any impurities.
Allowing them to age for three years.
