History of Molasses

Molasses, a natural by-product of sugar cane, has been a staple food ingredient for hundreds of years. The first record of sugar cane in the western world was in 327BC.

The English term molasses comes from the Portuguese melaço which in turn is derived from the Latin mel, meaning honey Melasus (sic) was first seen in print in 1582 in a Portuguese book heralding the conquest of the West Indies.

Molasses began being exported to the US from the West Indies to make rum which is a fermented liquor distilled from sugarcane molasses.

In the 1600s traders even started selling human cargo for barrels of molasses. High taxes were levied on molasses by the British via the Molasses Act of 1733, but the duties were widely ignored by the US Colonists.  The British Government reduced the duties in 1764 in a hope that more traders would comply. 

Up until the 1880s, molasses was the most popular sweetener in the United States because it was cheaper than refined sugar.  The end of the World War I saw refined sugar prices dropped considerably resulting in the migration of consumers from molasses to white sugar crystals.

On the 15 January of 1919, a huge vat of molasses at the Purity Distilling Company in Boston, USA exploded and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56km/h).  This event entered local Boston folklore and came to be known as the "Great Molasses Flood" killing 21 people and spilling two million gallons of molasses into the streets. Residents still claim that on hot summer days the area still smells of molasses.

Today molasses is widely recognised for its natural goodness and broad range of vitamins and mineral properties. Molasses is used extensively for cooking and marinades, in health products, brown sugar, industrial alcohol and rum products, and to make yeast and confectionery.

The inherent natural goodness of molasses has been appreciated by many people for centuries. Molasses is also very nutritious and palatable for animals and forms the basis of our liquid energy feeds.