Sweet taste of success

“A family tradition passed from generation to generation ... Still made the old fashion way.”

That slogan has appeared on jars of sorghum produced at the Blacklock family’s mill. It is a tradition that has spanned 100 years and now enters its sixth generation.

It is that sorghum still made the very same way, that won Blacklock Sorghum first place in the National Sweet Sorghum Producers and Processors Association’s 2024 Sweet Sorghum of the Year award in Pigeon Forge last month. This is the third time the sorghum made at the Cromwell Mill owned by Mike Blacklock has claimed the honor, but this year’s win is just a little bit sweeter.

This year was the first year that Blacklock’s nine-year-old grandson assisted in each step of batch’s production.

“This particular crop of cane was my grandson Ryder’s. He was there when we would start work in the morning and not in school and did part of every bit of the work,” Blacklock said.

Blacklock said Ryder did most of the work with the crop and when it was completed, he knew he had himself a winner.

“He said he was going to take one of these jars and enter it (in the NSSPPA competition) and it was going to win. And, he did. He was on cloud nine.”

Blacklock, who has been working with sorghum most of his life,

started Blacklock Sorghum in 1991. It is a tradition that he can trace back to his great-grandfather and could possibly go back further than that, he said.

The Blacklocks have been making their sorghum the same “old-fashioned way” as his grandfather made it. They are still raising the same variety of cane he did – an old heirloom variety of cane that he always used. They still fire the wood while others have gone to gas or steam. The only difference is his grandfather used a mule to turn the mill and they have an electric motor. The boiling and processing is still the same as it was 100 years ago.

“We do it identical to what my granddad did and I assume it is what his dad did.”

Blacklock’s cousin and his family also raise cane and produce sorghum under their own label using the same mill. So it is truly a family affair.

The winning sorghum beat out 45 other entries in this year’s contest. Blacklock said to most people his sorghum may taste the same as some of the others but there was “just a little something different about ours that must have caught the judges’ attention.”

He said most of the judges were chefs who know the different flavors and nuances.

“We were tickled with this (win),” Blacklock said. “We didn’t expect to win. We never do. There is a lot of good sorghum down there (in the competition).”

Blacklock, his cousin and their families work to make on average about 300 gallons a year which makes them a medium-size producer. This past year together they produced a little over 400 gallons.

They typically plant in late May or early June and harvest mid to late September. They usually produce their product on the weekends for the entire month of October. Last year’s good weather and good crop allowed them to begin producing at the end of September and continue halfway through November, he said.

“Last year we had a really good crop and had good weather with no frost and we made it into November and managed to work up more than we typically do,” Blacklock said.

Blacklock Sorghum is sold strictly off the farm right at the mill, he said.

Demand for sorghum has decreased over the years, and it is a dying art, Blacklock said. Most all those who produce it do so on a small scale.

He strives to keep this a hobby and not a job, but there’s a “fine line between being fun and being work if you do too much,”

“If I wanted to make money, there are a lot of other things I could do to make more money than what I do out of this and a lot easier work, but it is a hobby for me. It is more to keep the tradition alive than anything else.”