David Ulmer lives 200 yards up Bonner Road from where he was born in Sandersville. His father was a truck farmer, and an employee of Transco and Masonite. David also had eight sisters, but he was the one who learned to cook — cane syrup.

His father began making syrup in the 1940s, learning from his great uncle, Huey Ulmer. David began helping his father make cane syrup when he was 12. His father cooked syrup for his family, and also for other people.

“Like I do today,” Ulmer said one crisp November Saturday morning as he watched fresh cane juice begin to simmer in a homemade, stainless steel pan, steam beginning to rise off the juice under a shed behind his home.

But Ulmer’s father sold his mill when he got sick, and he bought his own mill and his father helped him cook.

“Algie Holifield and I cooked together after my dad got sick again,” he said.

He started cooking on his own in the early 90s, and has cooked off and on since then.

As the morning goes on, Ulmer feeds a fire in a brick oven with pine as the cane he grew is fed through the mill. Juice runs down the hill through PVC and out into the pan, where it is gradually heated. Steam rises as water in the juice evaporates, and what is left begins to thicken. He uses a dipper to check the consistency of the syrup during the process. When it’s at the right consistency, he opens a valve and drains the syrup into a 20-gallon metal pot. When it’s at the right consistency, the syrup is drained through a tap, through a stainless steel mesh screen filter, and leaves another tap for the can. The hot syrup seals the can itself.

Grates line the bottom of the oven to hold the pine, and air flows under the grates and goes back about five feet deep into the oven. Ulmer controls the draft of the heat by kicking dirt in front of the opening, which is covered by a metal plate. The furnace box gradually fills with dirt toward the end, where the cane juice enters the pan. There is about a two-inch throat at the end to hold the heat in the box. Smoke is vented through the roof of the shed.

Ulmer cooked his own syrup this particular Saturday morning early in November from cane he grew, on less than half an acre. The juice made about 15-16 gallons of syrup. He lit the fire around 7:15 a.m., and was through making syrup around 11:30.

A man from Ovett brought a trailer load of cane for Ulmer to make syrup Saturday afternoon. Anyone who goes to Ulmer’s place takes their own cane supplies, their own firewood and containers, and helps feed the cane through the mill.

Ulmer’s cane he used first Saturday morning was an old variety of hard, green cane, then ran a batch of blue ribbon cane. He prefers the blue ribbon variety because the stalks aren’t as large as the other, making them easier to feed through the mill. It also cooks easier and is sweeter.

Ulmer made about 300 gallons of syrup for other people last year.

“It’s just an old-timey tradition, and you’ve got to love to do it because it’s a lot of work for nothing, really,” he said.

He puts the syrup up in jars and cans, and says cans are getting harder to find. He has only been able to find them in Philadelphia.

He said a lot of people use the syrup to cook in baked beans with a piece of bacon or ham; eat with biscuits, use it to make taffy and peanut brittle, pecan pie, or mix it with butter or peanut butter.

Extra fertilizer when the cane is in the field can produce scorching during the syrup-making process. The salt content settles to the bottom and can cause scorched spots. A warm pan of water sits at the end of the oven in case the syrup gets too thick or looks like it will scorch. The extra water will evaporate and not dilute the process.

David’s son, Matthew, helps his father cook syrup. He’s been around a cane mill since he was 12, and has helped his father 10-15 years. He said he will continue the tradition.

“That’s something I always enjoyed being around, so I’ll try to teach it to my girls,” he said.