Something Southern: A History of Mules in South Georgia presented by Tyler Hendrix: Georgia Cane Boils: A Dying Tradition

Sugar cane boils are agricultural events where sugar cane stalks are chopped down, stripped bare of their leaves, and pressed between a set of rollers, or “grinders,” to squeeze out the sugar cane juice. Traditionally, mules provided the motive power for grinding sugar cane stalks, but tractors gradually replaced them. After the stalks are all pressed, the cane juice is moved into a syrup shed and placed into a large 50-gallon cast iron boiling pot, where the juice is boiled by the heat generated from a wood fire in the furnace underneath the pot. During the boiling process, the boiler skims the surface of the juice with a metal mesh skimmer to remove impurities from the syrup. In modern cane boils. the syrup is ready for packaging after it has reached a temperature of 226 degrees Fahrenheit and has passed a refractometer test. After boiling, the cane syrup is poured and packaged in sealed glass canning jars for storage. Generally, boiling 50 gallons of cane juice is sufficient to distill 5 gallons of cane syrup. Properly distilled cane syrup generally has very few impurities within it, and it has a shelf life between one to two years.

Cane syrup was offered an alternative to granulated sugar, which could be used in cooking and baking. On sugar cane-producing farms throughout the South, this syrup often formed the sole available form of sweetener for the local population. Traditional cane boils were generally community-oriented events; they were never large-scale events in Georgia. No factories were ever built to boil sugar cane syrup in the traditional method within Georgia. Today, very few traditionally operated cane boils are conducted in South Georgia, and ongoing boils are becoming increasingly rare.