the great Molasses flood

The long and storied history of distilled spirits.

Moderator: Site Moderator

Post Reply
User avatar
Rastus
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 694
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:27 pm

the great Molasses flood

Post by Rastus »

I was reading up on some molasses and Treacle info and a bit of historic molasses trivia came up.
As we approach January 15th let us remember those lost in the Great Molasses Flood of Boston of 1919!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

very interesting bit of history, i recall some such similar incident of beer flooding a street in London and taking the lives of several people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I love my molasses, and the fine drink we have been enjoying from it, but wow man! what a sticky messy Disaster!!

just something to ponder as i brew my next wash.
She was just a moonshiner,
But he loved her Still
User avatar
Bushman
Admin
Posts: 17975
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:29 am
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by Bushman »

I love history and that is a bit of history I have never heard or have forgotten. Maybe on the 15th I should start a rum run...sounds fitting.
User avatar
skow69
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 3230
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2011 3:03 am
Location: Cascadia

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by skow69 »

I must be a terrible person. I know that was a horrific tragedy that caused great suffering. But I couldn't help but laugh my ass off while I was reading it. Seriously! A 40 foot wall of molasses marauding down the street at 35 mph! If there was a nuclear accident involved it could be right up there with Godzilla.
Distilling at 110f and 75 torr.
I'm not an absinthe snob, I'm The Absinthe Nazi. "NO ABSINTHE FOR YOU!"
User avatar
bearriver
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 4442
Joined: Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:17 pm
Location: Western Washington

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by bearriver »

Check out the pictures: https://www.google.com/search?q=molasse ... =600&dpr=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
User avatar
Rastus
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 694
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:27 pm

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by Rastus »

It was mentioned and i did see accounts in recent history that on a hot day in certain parts of town you can still smell molasses...

now here is my mind thinking.... if a guy could find some of that hardened molasses in the crack of some corner spot... and managed to chisel a chunk of it, melt it down slow and easy and add it to the dunder pit... would it be as highly regarded as say... the 120 year old sourdough starter of old granny so and so from a Yukon river village?

but that's just my silly mind thinking there...


but seriously the account of horses looking like their struggling on hot sticky fly paper.... humans too... man o man
She was just a moonshiner,
But he loved her Still
Copper Thumper
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 368
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:14 pm

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by Copper Thumper »

I keep imagining a bunch of sugar ants on a garage floor and some guy spilling a full 5 gallon bucket of molasses onto the shop floor, the old man forgot to pick up the wood scraps from the birdhouse he built for maw maw earlier that day and the sap floods the "allyways" trapping and covering the ants that have no idea what just hit them.





That one picture said 50 injured and 11 killed, what a crazy way to die or get injured. imagine a guy being paralyzed from that disaster and other people later asking "how did you get hurt?" and him saying "the (not so) great molasses flood."

How big was that container holding it all? A 40 ft wall is huge! I am curious if that part was told on "the bench" and it was actually smaller?

Obviously a ton of damage, really hard to imagine that much molasses at once. Just crazy.

RIP
googe
retired
Posts: 3848
Joined: Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:53 pm
Location: awwstralian in new zealund

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by googe »

Thanks for sharing rastus!, unreal stories!, I can't imagine what the cleanup would be like, takes me forever to clean up when I spill a small amount in the shed! Lol.
Here's to alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems.
"Homer J Simpson"
User avatar
Rastus
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 694
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:27 pm

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by Rastus »

CT,
the amount of molasses was "as much as 2,300,000 US gal"

also reported was "The collapse unleashed a wave of molasses 25 feet (7.6 m) high at its peak" not 40 ft.

the Tank itself was 50ft high by 90ft diameter.

i get my molasses in 5 gallon buckets, and the lid has a nice little spout i pour into a mixing bowl as it sits on my scales,
and i still manage to make a mess.

I wonder if thats why Boston baked beans has Molasses in it... i bet people scooped that stuff up like crazy... waste not want not.
She was just a moonshiner,
But he loved her Still
User avatar
cranky
Master of Distillation
Posts: 6505
Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 3:18 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by cranky »

I saw an engineering disasters show a couple weeks ago on this. The distillery was preparing for prohibition and the tank was as full as they could get it, it had something like 2 million gallons in it. The molasses destroyed the firehouse and after several hours of being trapped one of the firemen couldn't hold on any longer and drown. I suppose the victims could be thought of as the first fatalities directly attributable to prohibition :problem: They found the contractor who built the tank cut a lot of corners which led to the failure. You just don't think of something like molasses as capable of something like that. Maybe I will hold off on my rum run and run it off on January 15th

Note: posting same time as Rastus
User avatar
Rastus
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 694
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:27 pm

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by Rastus »

here is a video gives it some perspective... i like how the reporter says the most crowded not only in the united states but in the entire country (snicker) :moresarcasm:

She was just a moonshiner,
But he loved her Still
hellbilly007
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 580
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:59 am
Location: Never one place very long

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by hellbilly007 »

Since the molasses was in a tank, I wonder if it was heated to lower the viscosity. This is how liquid asphalt (aka tar) is stored before being mixed with aggregate.

I can't even fathom the thought of how to go about cleaning such a mess.

Rastus, I thought of molasses in Boston baked beans too, when I started reading this.
Copper Thumper
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 368
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:14 pm

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by Copper Thumper »

2.3 million gallons x $8 a gallon now a days, that's alotta Jack just in lost product, let alone the devastation.


I don't think I could ever imagine correctly a 20ft tall wave of molasses coming at me.


Still just crazy.

The scary part is, that video stated almost immediately it started to leak....and they thought that filling it all the way up was a good idea??????


I'm breaking into a cold sweat just thinking about it.
User avatar
contrahead
Trainee
Posts: 903
Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2013 3:43 pm
Location: Southwest

Re: the great Molasses flood

Post by contrahead »

Turned the TV on briefly to drink my first cup of coffee this morning, and then turned it back off again. But I did watch long enough to catch a short mention of “the great Boston Molasses Flood” on “Modern Marvels”. I thought vaguely that I had read something about that incident here on HD. I had to search the topic out though, for my own self assurance, and that led to this comment.
Alcorub_newspaper_ad.png
"ALCORUB". That was the name of a high prurity ethanol made after the passage of Prohibition (1920). The ad says that it was denatured, without the use of poison. I wonder how. With castor oil?

The U.S. Industrial Alcohol Co. had purchased the “Purity Distilling Company” (in Boston - responsible for the molasses spill) in 1917 and was eventually charged for the damages. No word on wikipedia on what happened to the company afterward.

Before WW1, white granular sugar was expensive and so most people bought their sweetener in the form of black strap molasses.
The molasses in this tank in Boston however was destined to be distilled into ethanol. The company had made big profits during WW1, selling ethanol to other chemical companies that made gunpowder and munitions. (The ethanol would often be turned into the solvent diethyl ether – by reacting the the ethanol with sulfuric acid).

The day before the incident, the tank had been topped off from a ship, with warm molasses from the Caribbean. Harvard researches just recently decided that this wintertime disaster was more deadly than it would have been in the summer. Because it was warm and viscous but stiffened into a sticky quagmire that trapped people and animals once the cold air got to it.
Omnia mea mecum porto
Post Reply