means The thick, dark, sweet syrup left over when sugar cane or beet juice is boiled down and the sugar crystals are removed.

from From the Portuguese 'melaço,' meaning the same syrupy residue, which traces back to the Latin 'mel' — honey — the root that also sweetens 'mellifluous' and 'marmalade.' English picked it up in the 16th–17th centuries through the sugar trade. As for the essence's drowning: the 1919 Boston Molasses Flood was real — a giant storage tank burst and sent a wave of molasses through the streets, killing 21 people, proving the slow stuff could move terrifyingly fast.