If you grew up in Alabama, and you know delicious syrup, you're probably already well familiar with Golden Eagle Syrup.

The tasty condiment has a sweet story that starts in a shed in small-town Fayette, Alabama.

The architect behind the famous breakfast accoutrement is Victor Patterson, whose wife Lucy was kind enough to let him make syrup in their backyard. Patterson started making the syrup in 1928.

The Pattersons decided to turn their syrup venture into a full-fledged business, and by 1944, they moved into a manufacturing building in Fayette's downtown district.

The four ingredients that make up the popular product: 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 says Victor Patterson got the name for Golden Eagle from the syrup's color and the idea that an eagle flies high above everything below it.

Bowling and John Blevins bought the company in 2011. They shared a passion for Golden Eagle and agreed that the brand should remain a friendly, family-owned operation.

"Our wives say, 'You (two are) both the same kind of weird.'"

But, they aren't alone. There are people in Alabama, and all over the U.S. who swear by Golden Eagle's syrup.

"We ship it to Rhode Island. There's a guy who buys it by the cases, come Christmas time. He says, 'I can't make my pie with anything else. It's just not the same,'" Bowling says.

While time have certainly change since the Pattersons' humble beginnings making their prized syrup, Blevins and Bowling are committed to the authenticity of Golden Eagle. To achieve that personal touch and hometown feel, each bottle of syrup is still hand-fastened by a local employee in the downtown Fayette facility.

Source: "One of the most unique syrups you'll ever taste comes from small-town Alabama" AL.com (September 17, 2018) Jared Boyd