The falling leaves of autumn mean different things to different people, but to Edward Davis it means it’s time to gather firewood, grease the cane mill, harvest a load of sugar cane, and then start cooking a batch of the cane syrup he has become so famous for.

Davis, now retired from the Alabama Department of Transportation, lives just south of Highland Home, Alabama.  He began making cane syrup over sixty years ago as his father’s helper.  “My brothers and I got up before daylight and ran enough sugar cane through Daddy’s cane mill to produce about sixty gallons of cane juice.  Daddy would cook the cane juice down to make syrup and gather more cane for us to squeeze before school the next morning,” says Davis.

According to Davis, who is considered a master syrup maker, the art of making home cooked syrup is a dying skill.  “Few people want to bother to plant, cultivate, and harvest sugar cane.  You have to have a cane mill to squeeze the juice from the cane, and you have to have a fire pit and a custom made pan.  All this can become quite expensive.  I don’t make syrup to make money – I just love to make it and eat it,” says Davis.

Davis says good quality sugar cane is the number one requirement for making quality syrup.  He plants the POJ variety, a type of cane that is considered excellent for making syrup.  “It takes about sixteen stalks of cane to make a gallon of cane juice and about sixteen gallons of juice to make a gallon of syrup.  Also, I don’t apply ammonium nitrate to my cane because you can taste it in the syrup,” says Davis.

The Dying Art of Home Cooking Cane Syrup Still Practiced by a Highland Home Resident