The ruins of the original TABASCO^® Sauce factory were excavated again in the summer of 2001 — the second phase of an archaeological dig that began in 2000. Excavators hoped to recover artifacts relevant to life in Southwest Louisiana in the nineteenth century, as well as early TABASCO^® Sauce bottles and other historical relics.

An archaeological team, led by Ashley Dumas of the University of Alabama, dug around the perimeter of the "Laboratory," where former New Orleans banker Edmund McIlhenny blended aged red peppers, salt and vinegar to create TABASCO^® brand Pepper Sauce in the mid-to late 1860s.

A thick bamboo grove and the woods surrounding the ruined Laboratory, where a complex of outbuildings related to TABASCO^® production once stood, were also excavated. The Team was looking to unearth culinary artifacts as well as those related to everyday life on nineteenth-century Avery Island, and events that took place during the Civil War.