You can buy your gumbo fil in a supermarket and it may have sat on the shelf for months or you can buy it from my friend Lionel Key and he may have ground it yesterday. Lionel grinds fil at his home in Baton Rouge exactly the way his Uncle Bill taught him many years ago. Here's the genuine article straight from oak casks at New Iberia, Louisiana. I bought a gallon jug of this wonderful stuff way back in 1983, and I'm still using it today. I toted that heavy jug up and down Bourbon Street and didn't drop it and bust it.
Miracles do happen.
Drunk or sober you can order a gallon jug online and let the UPS person worry about busting it. Check out the gift boxes and the cool T-shirts. This is the meat injector and the spices that Cholly Mac used in the Redneck Hog Roast page here in the juke joint's recipe section . Steen's Syrup is the best tasting factory-made syrup made anywhere in the world. It's the closest you will come to old timey, open vat home-made syrup.