Giant Key lime pie gives Boston taste of Florida Keys

The Monroe County Tourist Development Council kicked off an advertising campaign in Boston Thursday with a free sample of the Florida Keys.

Commuters at South Station found an oversized Key lime pie measuring eight feet in diameter and weighing about 1,000 pounds.

Key West chef David Sloan, who knows a few things about the famous dessert (he wrote The Ultimate Key Lime Pie Cookbook), orchestrated the undertaking that required the juice of 5,760 Key limes, 200 pounds of graham crackers and 55 gallons of sweetened condensed milk.

About 2,000 people got a slice.

Thanks to a $240,000 media buy, more than 75 images and other ads for the Florida Keys will appear throughout the bus and rail station until the end of the month. The TDC is spending another $100,000 on TV ads to urge Boston residents to abandon their wintry home for the warmth of the Keys.

But the tourist group wasn’t immune from the effects of the weather, according to a press release announcing the event: “At one point, the recent heavy snow in the northeast put the entire pie project in jeopardy.”

While larger than usual, the Key lime pie stunt was not new for the destination. In November, representatives from the Keys sent a bright green pie food truck through the streets of the Toronto and Hamilton areas in Canada.

This story was originally published February 6, 2015 at 5:29 PM with the headline "Giant Key lime pie gives Boston taste of Florida Keys."