What would be the best storage container?
ETA: add me to the chorus of folks who learned A Thing ™ today (the vertical bars on the sides) and I agree that a green leaf & blue bars would be a lovely variant.
Any freezer-safe container should be fine. But it also keeps indefinitely on the fridge, in my experience.
I had an employee years ago whose parents made maple syrup for a living. He gave me a gallon can of it at Christmas one year, which was very exciting until I tried it. Sadly, it tasted strongly metallic.
No, respectfully, you don’t “get it” at all. Having been designed in the latter half of the 20th century, the flag of Canada reflects modern design sensibilities, most notably the principle of minimalism. When the design consists entirely of three large elements, as opposed to a multitude of smaller ones, then colour harmony becomes important.
The article I linked previously shows an early proposed design with blue bars and three red maple leaves, and it looks busy and primitive compared to the minimalist elegance of the final design. Incidentally, the flag of Australia is also very simple, it’s just that like many former colonies, including Canada until the adoption of the new flag, they chose to display the Union Jack in the canton. The original Union Jack itself is over 400 years old (updated slightly in 1801) so a reflection of historical tradition rather than modern design.
another TIL here!
but i also think that the green-blue idea sounds better in your head than in reality
That’s not something I would want to look at if I had a hangover! 
It’s softer colors than bright red
I wonder if maple syrup has at least some of the longevity of honey…?
Honey, supposedly, never spoils. I’ve heard thousands of year old jars of honey found in Egyptian tombs were (theoretically, at least) edible.
I used to work with someone who retired young to live on a big piece of land in Michigan’s U.P. I visited him and his wife several times up there. Once they gifted me with a bottle of their homemade maple syrup from their trees. Like you, I was excited to try it, but was disappointed by an off-flavor. I’ve often wondered what went wrong—did they burn it a little? An off-taste from the container they boiled it down in? Choosing trees that give sap and may look like maples but aren’t the greatest, flavor-wise, like maybe a box elder?
Yeah, I like it. Those are nature colors. Not to mention naturalistic, in the sense that they are the general colors of what they represent. I understand and respect the reason for going with red and white, but I certainly don’t hate that alternate universe blue and green version.
No. Honey really doesn’t spoil. I’ve never seen moldy honey, for instance. I don’t refrigerator honey, any i kinda collect it, and i have some honey that has been in my cupboard for years and is still fine. Maple syrup is just really high in sugar, so most stuff won’t grow in it. But it does get moldy if it’s not sterile and you leave it at room temp for long enough.
I once read a post on a mailing list by a guy who said he won competitions for the best-tasting maple syrup, and he used mostly sugar maple, but a little silver maple and moose maple, iirc. And I’ve had pure silver maple syrup, which was good.
And… It’s not that hard to identify trees, if it matters to you.
I’m guessing the off flavors are from processing, or possibly from drawing sap too long into the spring. The sap keeps flowing, but starts to pick up less desirable flavors once the leaves come out, and maybe sooner.
Yeah, I’ve heard that too. Need to have a string of days where it’s freezing in the mornings and above freezing later on in the day. If it’s warm all day and night the sap can get bitter.
There is so little water in honey any bacteria in it sporulate and are rendered inactive therefore no spoilage. They do come to life in your gut but your immune system makes short work of them. Infants’ systems are not so robust so it is ill-advised to give honey to any babes less than one-year old.
Syrup otoh, has more water so. while I have not had any go sour, I have had to remove mold one time.