Living in northern New England I
get asked about maple syrup twice a year: in the Spring when it is tapped from
the trees and made into syrup (I can sit on my balcony and smell it being made
in all the different sugar shacks in my town) and in the Fall (when maple
products are sold everywhere.) Today is the first day of Fall so I thought I
would get ahead of the question I am usually asked.
One question people ask me is
which maple syrup do I prefer (the ones produced in: Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont, New York or Quebec, Canada.) Maple syrup and maple syrup-made products
are taken very seriously up here and even have different grades depending on
their quality and color.
In the past 10 years I have done extensive
testing with different products made with maple syrup from the different
locations. I’ve had homemade maple ice cream, homemade maple candy, homemade
maple doughnuts, store-bought maple ice cream, store-bought maple candy,
store-bought maple doughnuts, maple
butter, maple taffy, maple beer, hot maple cider, maple-horseradish,
maple-mustard, etc.
A lot of the chain stores and
restaurants nation-wide use store-bought maple syrup or a maple flavoring in
their products and aren’t that good. I prefer the places that use and sell real
maple syrup and maple-made products. There are several places right in my town
that sell the maple syrup and products they produce and I try to get them
whenever I can. When I can’t get those our market in the next town has a
selection of regionally-made maple products.
To get back to the question: I
really like a maple-mustard made in Maine. I have two maple syrups that I
really like with one being made in Quebec, Canada and the other in New
Hampshire. There’s a maple ice cream that is made in Vermont using real maple
syrup and not maple flavoring (and I can get it in my local market seasonally.)
After 10 years I can’t say which geographic location has the best maple syrup,
but I can say which are my favorite locally or regionally made and sold maple
syrup and products.
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