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We went down to Rocky Mount, NC this weekend to make molasses. My dad and uncle make it every year on the family farm. Every year, the process is a little different and the molasses comes out ever so slightly different. Here are some pictures of the weekend.

The cane gets topped and cut down, then fed into the mill to squeeze the juice out. The engine that runs the mill is an old Model A Ford with not much left to it but the steering wheel and engine and rear differential. After pressing it and filtering out any junk, it gets put in a large flat pan to cook over a fire. That process usually take five to six hours (hence the flash being used that night in the pictures). It then gets poured into donut icing buckets to be jarred.

The pictures of the farmhouse are the house where my father and uncle grew up as kids.