Avery Island

Avery Island is not an island but a salt dome - a plug of rock salt pushed up through the coastal marsh, rising about fifty metres above sea level and still mined. Edmund McIlhenny began making pepper sauce here in 1868 and the family has made it on the island ever since; peppers are aged in salt from the dome in oak barrels for around three years before the mash is blended with vinegar. The tour covers the process and the greenhouse. Jungle Gardens was laid out by Edward McIlhenny, who in the 1890s raised young snowy egrets in captivity and released them when plume hunting had reduced the species severely - Bird City, the rookery he founded, now holds thousands each spring.

What you actually see

• A salt dome, not an island - rock salt pushed up through marsh.
• Pepper mash aged three years - in salt-sealed oak barrels.
• Jungle Gardens - laid out by the family over decades.
• Bird City - a rookery founded to restore the snowy egret.

When to go

October to May; egrets nest in spring. Half a day.

Honest expectations

There is a toll to enter the island and separate tickets after. Summer heat, humidity and mosquitoes are heavy. The factory tour is a walkway past process, not a working floor. It is a drive from Lafayette.

Nearby

New Iberia is north; the Atchafalaya Basin is east.