100 percent maple syrup

Maple syrup is more expensive than 18 year old scotch

We get it "fairly" cheap from the Amish around here.

We make pancakes only when the grandkids stay over but it's maple syrup or nothing.

I'll stick to the $2 bottle from walmart. I'm cheap

bought some yesterday, smallest bottle was $9

The best stuff is from Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec from small operations.

You simply don't know until you've had it.

Quote from Gina

You can use maple syrup for a lot more than just pancakes

If you have truly good stuff, it is wasted on pancakes.

My family was making it since the 1700s to about the 1950s. We sold our lands, and still it is made there from the same trees.

Every year.

Quote from Gina

how much can you get out of one tree? Does the sap replenish?

You can get about 40 liters of sap out of a good tree in a season (season being very short when winter turns to spring) Basically you boil it to get the water out of the sap at a ratio of about 50-1... so that one tree might make +/- 1 liter of maple syrup in a season. It's very energy intensive to boil down. After that it's filtered and you're good provided it didn't get contaminated or otherwise spoiled. Once canned, it's good 50 years at least. It's very difficult to make large scale, so most people making it are relatively small operations - usually farmers who do it on the side. How good it is all comes down to the trees - the very best ones are in Western Quebec going into the US border (So NY, Vermont also have some excellent trees). It's all about the trees, the soil and the local climate.

The expensive stuff you see at Safeway (like down here in the USA) will say "Canadian Maple Syrup" or "Vermont Maple Syrup" and are mass market made. I suspect most are cut with something to increase volume. These cost quite a lot and honestly it's about the worst grade you can get. Is it terrible ? Yes it is - if you've had the good stuff. To me it's a step above the artificial stuff (Mrs Butterworth and the like), but it's pretty crappy. If you haven't had the best stuff you just won't know better.

I'm not a fan of using good stuff for pancakes and the like - it's simply too precious and difficult to get for using it like that. I only use the good stuff for baking. The best way to enjoy it is to make a hybrid cake/pudding dessert and it must be eaten burning hot, with a side of vanilla ice cream.

If you're in Canada, like at an airport, they sell some in very fancy bottles to make them look like high end liquor. That stuff is low grade crap (and ridiculously overpriced). You find the best stuff at small grocery stores in the areas where it is made. The top shelf stuff comes in cans like this:

They will have stickers on them that tell you which exact farm (and location) the syrup came from. It is also reasonably priced believe it or not.

You can get the good stuff in the US via Amazon but it's very expensive (about $20 for a can). I would pick those up in Canada for about $3 ea and fill a suitcase. At the rate I use it I'm good for several years.

Looking at Jed's (above) made in Vermont- I checked them out, and given the price ($1/ounce) I'm willing to bet it's probably excellent.

Lots of locally sourced syrup around here..

Stacks of the stuff at the Costcos here. Now I want to griddle some pancakes.