I think pancakes and syrup have to be matched up for complementary flavors. I actually don’t think real maple syrup would suit IHOP’s pancakes very well. On the other hand, putting the fake stuff on Cracker Barrel’s pancakes would be a travesty.
Suffice to say that I enjoy both types, depending on the occasion.
I didn’t find it “amazingly bad,” but I have found that when I’ve had real maple syrup there has been a distinct aftertaste that I don’t care for. I don’t know if it’s fair to characterize it as “xylene-like” or “kerosene-like,” but I do know that it’s not a flavor that I particularly want to taste every day*. And I do attribute the aftertaste to the fact that the syrup components spent a significant amount of time inside a tree.
*Or any day.
Also, when I was a kid, bottled maple syrup was a luxury that only happened at my grandmother’s house. When we had pancakes or waffles, we’d boil up 4 cups of granulated sugar in 2 cups of water, and once it turned clear, add a half teaspoon of McCormick imitation maple extract.
Anybody like Birch syrup? It tastes much more like a tree than most people enjoy.
Or at least more than I enjoy.
I’ve never had birch syrup, but I love birch beer, which is similar to root beer but made from birch syrup. It doesn’t taste like a tree at all to me, at least not the brand I buy. It’s like a minty root beer.
Maybe the more concentrated syrup brings out the tree flavor.
Taomist - it occurs to me that if you have a reallly good non-stick pan you could always just boil it down until it begins to carameize. . .
I’ve brewed with maple syrup before. Used it in a barleywine to some degree of acclaim.
Well, according to everyone I’ve talked to around here that actually makes the stuff, the grade is a reflection of what time of the season the sap is collected. Early on in the spring as the sap first starts up, it’s mostly relatively pure sugar and water with very little of the other stuff that contributes to the maple flavor. This sap gives you the fancy grade A syrup without as much maple flavor. As the season progresses and the tree starts to make and/or pick up other stuff, the flavor intensifies and the syrup darkens.
The makers measure the sugar concentration to tell when the syrup is done, and they don’t vary it to give different grades. When it’s done, it’s done, and whatever grade you end up with is whatever grade you end up with.
Former Vermonter here. Guess what I voted for.
Kodos?
For a treat, I’ll put some Maple syrup in my coffee once in a while.
I also recently topped some beer ice cream with Maple syrup. Delicious!
Who’s familiar with maple sugar candy?
http://www.piecesofvermont.com/maple-candy.html
It’s pure crystallized maple syrup.
Man, that’s good stuff. Of course, it’s the kind of thing that you eat 1 piece of occasionally if you value your teeth and pancreas. 
We lived in upstate New York when I was a kid. Maple sugar candy always takes me back to happy childhood memories. Love the stuff, but yeah, just a piece or two around Christmastime is about it. Or the bits of crystallized syrup along the cap on the bottle (I keep it in the fridge).
Maple sugar candy is great. I introduced my wife to it when we bought a bag at the visitors center at Gettysburg a couple of months ago. It seemed to have been rare to find back in Texas and other states farther west, but I do recall having had it before.
Thanks for the education on syrup grades, folks–ignorance fought!
Ferget that–I love birch! When I go hiking in the mountains, I keep a lookout for a birch tree, and when I find one, I’ll pick a green twig to chew on. Delicious! The wife and daughter also get a twig if they want one, which they usually do. So I’m thinking I’d like to try that syrup sometime.
I’m home alone at the moment.
And that is good, because once again, I am consuming maple syrup out of a small ramkin with a spoon. “Canada No. 1 Medium”, for the record.
I’m not even all that ashamed.
Thank you for the link to birch syrup, **Qadgop **the Mercotan. As I read the thread, I wondered about that. We have a young birch in the front yard, and this was the first year I’d noticed birds pecking the trunk. The birds turned out to be a Red-breasted sapsucker - Wikipedia. After watching and photographing then, I was curious about the stuff oozing out of the tree, figuring it was birch sap. So I tasted it. (No, I didn’t lick the tree–dabbed with my finger.) Quite nice and sweet!
But it sounds like tapping my tree for syrup would be far more trouble that it would be worth, and besides, I enjoy watching the birds get the sap.
I tried birch beer, and didn’t like it, and a maple porter, which I very much did.
Now thanks to Dorkness, I’m going to have to try chewing a green twig off the tree. Might be too late this year, though.
When I get the itch to go out to a diner for pancakes or the like, I tend to take my own syrup with me–even if they allegedly serve real maple syrup. The “Famous” Cozy Soup 'n Burger here has what appears to be bottles of real maple syrup prominently displayed around the place, but I’ve ordered pancakes and gotten the awful fake stuff. Before I moved to my tiny (and especially kitchen-challenged) apartment, I was seriously considering ordering a case of the tiny bottles of maple syrup so that I wouldn’t have to slum it with a little rubbermaid container of maple syrup.
Seriously, maple syrup is awful stuff. Once you’ve had it, you’re spoiled; nothing else will do.
Heck, I’m in Birch Bay. (I’d wave to you, but the San Juans are in the way.) I should probably learn what a birch tree looks like.
Like this. Basically, as distinctive a tree as you can get without being an evergreen.
(I’m not at all a tree person) How can you tell the difference between birch and aspen? Because I’d guess those were aspens before I ever thought of birch. (I googled, but while the clear and obvious differences might be so for someone who likes/studies trees, I am completely at a loss.)
