Muscovado is a type of partially refined to unrefined sugar with a strong molasses content and flavour, and dark brown in colour. It is technically considered either a non-centrifugal cane sugar or a centrifuged, partially refined sugar according to the process used by the manufacturer. Muscovado contains higher levels of various minerals than processed white sugar. Its main uses are in food and confectionery, and the manufacturing of rum and other forms of alcohol. The largest producer and consumer of muscovado is India.

The English name "muscovado" is derived from a corruption of Portuguese açúcar mascavado (unrefined sugar).

There is no legal definition of muscovado, and no international standards for it such as Codex Alimentarius or "protected designation of origin". This has led to manufacturers calling various sugar products "muscovado", and has led to confusion between muscovado, brown sugar, and even jaggery.

The earliest known production of crystalline sugar began in northern India, after the introduction of sugarcane by Austronesian traders from Maritime Southeast Asia at around 1000 BCE. However, the exact date of the first cane sugar production is unclear. The earliest evidence of sugar production comes from ancient Sanskrit and Pali texts. Around the 8th century, Muslim and Arab traders introduced sugar from medieval India to the other parts of the Abbasid Caliphate in the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa, and Andalusia. By the 10th century, sources state that every village in Mesopotamia grew sugarcane.

The early modern era, which saw the European colonization of the Americas and Asia, also led to a rapid increase in sugar production. Sugar plantations were established in numerous places colonized by European nations, such as islands in the Indian Ocean, the West Indies and South and North America. Labor for these plantations were typically provided by indentured servants, slaves or kidnapped Pacific Islanders, which saw the rise of the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades to supply enslaved laborers to cash crop plantations (including those producing sugar). Sugarcane was typically refined into raw sugar or distilled into rum on colonial plantations or sent elsewhere to be processed.

Raw sugar was brought to port in a variety of purities that could be sold either as raw sugar directly to market for producing alcohol, or as muscovado exported to sugar refineries in Europe and the Americas. In 19th-century Europe, raw sugars that had been refined enough to lose most of their molasses content were labeled as raw sugar and deemed higher quality, while poor quality sugars with a high molasses content were referred to as muscovado, though the term brown sugar was sometimes used interchangeably.

Muscovado is made from the juice of sugar cane that is evaporated until crystallisation occurs. The viscous suspension of crystals and mother liquor (molasses) is called massecuite. In the 19th century several techniques were used for sugar production. Muscovado is today produced by three main methods:

Massecuite is also used in the production of jaggery, in which it is set into moulds directly (without shearing, centrifuging, or spray drying).