The Maasdam family of Maasdam Sorghum Mills, Lynnville, Iowa, demonstrated cooking down sorghum to a sweet syrup after pressing the stalks through a horse-powered mill at the Old Threshers Reunion. Stalks of sorghum grow like corn, but are about 10-15 feet in height. Farmers harvest sorghum in September by removing the leaves, cutting the stalks, pressing them, and straining and cooking the green juice of the stalks down into a thick, brown sweet syrup.
Sorghum was introduced to the American colonies in the early 1600s by African slaves from the Gulf of Guinea, but the wild plant had its origins before the Christian era. Sweet sorghum has been widely cultivated in the U.S. since the 1850s for use as a sweetener. Sweet sorghum syrup has its own taste, but is described as a light version of molasses.
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Sorghum festivals in the U.S.
- Morgan County Sorghum Festival, West Liberty, Kentucky
- Sorghum Festival, Blairsville, Georgia
- Sorghum Festival, Crawford County, Indiana
- Hancock County Sorghum Festival, Hawesville, Kentucky
- Tipton-Haynes Bluegrass and Sorghum Festival, Johnson City, Tennessee
- Syrup Sopping, Loachapoka, Alabama
- Old School Sorghum Festival, McDaniels Crossroads, North Carolina
- Scott County Sorghum Festival, Oneida, Tennessee
- Sorghum Festival, Wewoka, Oklahoma
