Feed Your Sweet Tooth on a Sugar Tour in Baton Rouge

Begin your sweet tour through Baton Rouge with a visit to Houmas House Plantation, also known as “The Sugar Palace.” Enjoy the enchantment of this magnificently restored mansion and its 12 acres of gardens. The mansion was owned by sugar cane baron John Burnside during the antebellum South. When the Civil War began, Burnside was the largest sugar producer in the country. Download Sugar Tour PDF HERE.

Next, visit Rural Life Museum, home to an extensive collection of tools, vehicles, farming implements and more than 20 buildings used during the plantation era. Schedule live demonstrations such as the production of cane syrup (during harvest time).

Also, visit the Audubon Sugar Institute, which was designed to provide research and technical service to Louisiana’s agricultural industries, primarily the cane sugar processing industry. Tour the facilities and view a slideshow of the sugar cane process.  Fall is the best season to view the whole process.

Then travel to downtown Baton Rouge, and visit the Louisiana State Museum to see a large exhibit on the agriculture of Louisiana as well as several interactive exhibits on Louisiana culture, food, music and history. From there,  cross the street and stroll through the Capitol Gardens to the Louisiana State Capitol for a look at the House and Senate Chamber ceilings made of Bagasse, a by-product of sugar cane.

Next, take a 5-minute drive across the Mississippi River Bridge to the West Baton Rouge Museum. See how sugar was produced from “cane to grain” and learn about the history of life on a sugar plantation. See a 1904 22’ hand-crafted working model of a sugar mill that exhibits the process of making raw sugar from sugar cane. The guided tour also features a 4-acre campus with historic sugar plantation structures.

Then board the bus to the state historic site Plaquemine Lock, which brings visitors directly to the waters of the Mississippi to see how sugar and goods were transported from sugar plantations to the refineries in the northern states.

Travel further south to one of the few surviving grand plantations, Nottoway, the largest plantation home in the south. Tour the home and enjoy lunch or dinner at the Mansion Restaurant.

For details, contact Katie Guasco
Senior Sales Manager, Tourism Development
Katie@visitbatonrouge.com