The City of Nacogdoches is hosting the 4th annual Old-Fashioned Sweet Tooth Sugarcane Festival, which will be held January 12th from 8:00am to 12:00pm at the Durst-Taylor Historic House and Gardens. This historic house is home to a sugar cane field, which is harvested by the Historic Sites staff for the festival. Using an 1800s mule-powered sugar cane press, the cane will be pressed and boiled down to make ribbon cane syrup. 
For those wishing to watch this process, plan on arriving early. At 10:00 am, award winning horticulturist, writer and conservationist, Greg Grant, will be presenting, Sweet Dreams- Growing a Small Patch of Sugarcane for Ribbon Cane Syrup. The program will teach those interested how he produces heirloom sugar cane each year from seed cane to planting, fertilizing, irrigation and all the way to harvesting as well as other details about this historic tradition. Throughout the event, the Nacogdoches Junior Forum and the Kiwanis Club will be teaming up for the annual Pancakes and Pajamas campaign. To go along with the syrup, the Kiwanis Club will be making and selling pancakes with all funds going to support their service projects, and the Nacogdoches Junior Forum will be collecting women and children’s pajamas. All pajama donations will be taken to the Nacogdoches Women’s Center.
The Durst Taylor Historic House and Gardens will be open for tours during the event in addition to an assortment of activities being offered, including old fashioned crafts for children, such as whirligigs and corn husk dolls, a blacksmith demonstration and a working smokehouse. For additional information concerning the event, please contact the Jessica Sowell at 936-560-4441 or email historicsites@ci.nacogdoches.tx.us. Information can also be found on the Historic Sites website, http://www.ci.nacogdoches.tx.us, or on the official facebook page, Nac Historic Sites.
