Perdido Beach History Sugar Cane Syrup   Making sugar cane syrup   Exerts from Mobile Press Register article of November 23, 2007 entitled “Sugar Sweet History” by Thomas Spencer   “Cooking up sugar cane syrup or sorghum is a fast-vanishing autumn tradition….But up until the end of World War II, syrup-making was an indispensable part of rural life, supplying a dose of sweetness to cash-poor Alabamians who often didn’t have access to refined, store-bought white sugar.  Syrup was the primary sweetener in cooking, and many a farm morning started with a biscuit smothered in syrup…. With schoolchildren looking on, Dawn Cook conducts an awkward ballet of volunteers feeding sugar cane into a mill.  As a mule walks in circles pulling the wooden arm that turns the mill’s rollers, the cane is pushed in.  Volunteers take care to duck as the mule brings the arm round again….the juice collected from the wrung-out canes pour(s) into a bucket….Lavord Crook…was explaining the process….After the grinding (of the cane) he walks the children over to the furnace where the cane juice will be cooked in evaporator pans over a fire, boiling away the water until the consistency is right for syrup…. A lot of communities had a syrup mill in a central location…. (Today) Pure sugar cane is hard to find.  Most of it is made by small farmers, and there aren’t many small farms left anymore….Alabama’s largest commercial cane syrup-maker is the Montgomery-based Whitfield company, makers of Alaga Syrup…. (the syrup) is such a unique taste.  It has been a Southern staple for so long…dishes such as baked beans, pecan pie and sweet potato casserole just aren’t right without it.