Alabama's Favorite Syrup Has Been Made the Same Way in the Same Tiny Town for 90 Years

Alabamians know: there's nothing quite like the taste of Golden Eagle Syrup.

Almost 100 years later, this uniquely delicious syrup is still being made in the tiny town of Fayette, Alabama, where it was invented by Victor Patterson in his backyard in 1928.

Even back then, people couldn't enough of Patterson's honey-forward condiment, and he and his wife decided to turn their small-time syrup venture into a full-fledged business. According to AL.com, in 1944 they moved Golden Eagle Syrup into the manufacturing building in Fayette's downtown where it still remains.

Today, even the recipe is unchanged. The same four ingredients still make up the sweet syrup popular with pecan pie bakers: cane sugar, corn syrup, molasses and honey.

"That's all that's in our product," Temple Bowling, one of the company's current co-owners, told This is Alabama. "Since they're all pure sugars, there is no expiration."

Bowling and his business partner John Blevins took over Golden Eagle Syrup in 2011 along with their families. Each jar continues to be hand tightened as it was in 1928.

"We purchased it because we wanted to keep it a small Alabama company," Bowling explained. "The nostalgia of it is what intrigued us about it."

"'A syrup without any equal' is what Mr. Patterson used to say," Bowling continued. "He named it Golden Eagle Syrup because no bird flies higher than an eagle and 'golden' for the color of the syrup."