Inside Quebec’s Great, Multi-Million-Dollar Maple-Syrup Heist
19th December 2022
Without government, there would be no high prices.
I haven’t had any maple syrup in decades, but if I did, I would insist on Vermont syrup.
19th December 2022
Without government, there would be no high prices.
I haven’t had any maple syrup in decades, but if I did, I would insist on Vermont syrup.
December 19th, 2022 at 09:30
New York, if it’s offered.
December 20th, 2022 at 00:04
A friend in upstate NY went on a quest for “real” maple syrup. (Nothing you buy in a grocery store is real syrup. It’s HFCS with brown coloring. Many roadside places cut their syrup as well.) He also wanted to get it as cheap as possible, because he’s just that way. After many hours of driving, he managed to find a farm where a guy was selling genuine maple syrup for a decent price. He asked the guy how he kept his price low and the man replied that other people were using propane to cook their sap down, and the propane was expensive, but he used wood and old tires for heat. So my friend took the stuff home and the next morning he got up and made pancakes. He buttered up those pancakes and poured that fresh, dark brown syrup over the top. One taste and he found out why the stuff was cheap. It had the distinct flavor of burning tires. Not just a little bit, but a lot.
I lived near Syracuse for a few miserable years, and there were tons of sugar maple trees on old fence rows. I had one on the end of my property. Those trees are 200 years old. A few people planted “sugarbushes”, groves of sugar maple trees, but it was pretty rare. In the old days, farmers put them around fences and areas too steep to plow. They knew they’d never get any syrup or useful wood, but that future generations would benefit. Nobody now gives a fig about what they leave for the future.
December 20th, 2022 at 03:07
Sad but true.