The saying, “slow as molasses in January”.

If you asked me to describe the taste of molasses right this minute I would be hard-pressed. Yet as a child this form of sugar was common on pancakes and other, um, things. Yet if you gave me some right now and I tasted it, all the memories would come flooding back — yet the description of the flavor would remain elusive — it is one of those things that tastes only like itself. It is deathly sticky too, and once on your fingers you will be instinctively compelled to seek water and soap, specifically Boraxo, a hand soap designed by shadowy soap scientists capable of removing any substance from your hands, including the first few layers of epidermal material.

Molasses is thick and as it cools it gets thicker and thicker which gives rise to the phrase “slow as molasses in January”. I have nominated this as descriptive phrase of the year, along with “I was born at night, just not last night”, and “If it was a snake it woulda bit yah”. Glub, God of Phrases, will cast the tie breaker.

I used to imagine that molasses was pumped directly from the ground and transported across the dry plains of the Serengeti in great metal flasks as tall as a man. Then I woke to the fading sound of heavy hooves on cobblestones and the scent of lilac in the air. A dream? I think not.