Eric Nguyen

Sweet Taste Forged in Fire In 18th-century Barbados, cane sugar was made in cast-iron syrup kettles, an approach later on adopted in the American South. Sugarcane was squashed using wind and animal-powered mills. The drawn out juice was warmed, clarified, and vaporized in a series of iron pots of decreasing size to make crystallized sugar. The Sweet Country: Barbados Sugar Production. Barbados, typically called the "Gem of the Caribbean," owes much of its historic prominence to one product: sugar. This golden crop transformed the island from a small colonial outpost into a powerhouse of the global economy during the 17th and 18th centuries. Yet, the sweet success of sugar was built on a foundation of enslaved labour, a fact that casts a shadow over its tradition. The Boiling Process: A Grueling Job Sugar production in the 17th and 18th centuries was  a perilous process. After collecting and squashing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in massive cast i...