Reducing the sugar solution

On the drive from Bagan to Kalaw we stopped at a roadside place where they make various products from palm sugar. I didn't even know you could get sugar from a palm; the owner told us the toddy palm grows naturally only here, in the dry zone of Myanmar, and has been harvested for sugar for centuries, each family owning several hundred trees which they nurture as they would a family member.
We watched as one of the younger members of the family climbed the tree with pots attached to his belt, which he filled from pots fixed beneath the tree's flowers. The sugar solution is reduced over heat from a wood fire, by spooning small amounts from one pot to the next. They made jaggery, sugared sesame, ginger and tamarind, and a lethal-looking white palm rum.