Photography of David Allan Barker

Some people claim that maple syrup is a perfectly fungible product. In fact, the PPAQ’s Strategic Global Maple Syrup Reserve is premised on the assumption that maple syrup produced in one region is no different than maple syrup produced in another region. While this serves the needs of large scale producers and large retailers including major grocery chains, small producers take issue with the claim.

A small producer might own and manage their own sugar bush, and heat the evaporator with wood culled from that sugar bush, infusing the syrup with a wood smoke distinctive to that locale. Similarly, small scale Indigenous producers maintain that their intimate relationship with the land is reflected in the flavour of their syrup. These are artisanal efforts that require special craft and local knowledge.

Small producers draw a comparison to wine-making and the distinction between a large commercial wine like Australia’s Yellow Tail wines which, in 2015 exported 8 million cases of wine to the U.S. and a local wine from Ontario’s Beamsville Bench with an annual production of 300 cases. The local wine-maker would point to the terroir and the unique craft of the wine-maker to deliver a distinctive experience that you just can’t get from a large commercial producer.

To test the competing claims about maple syrup flavour, I purchased two large commercial brands and set them against a liter of syrup produced at Williams Farm. If you have been reading my March posts, you’ll know that John Williams is my brother-in-law. I get nothing from promoting his products (except for mild sugar highs and temporary hyperactivity). To eliminate bias, I conducted my tastings in whisky tasting glasses wrapped in duct tape.

First a note about each of the bottles of maple syrup. All three claim to be amber. The two commercial brands include the words “100% Pure Maple Syrup” and “Canada Grade A / Amber, Rich Taste.” This is the precise wording reflected on the PPAQ’s web site. Since Williams Farm isn’t a Québec producer, it doesn’t use this wording; John just hands you a bottle and says: “Here’s some amber, eh.”

One of the commercial brands is Frank. Frank is a Canadian Tire brand. It comes in a plastic bottle and says: “Frank knows all aboot maple.” (Who talks that way?) While you’re getting an oil change downstairs, you can go upstairs and buy a 600 mL bottle of maple syrup for $10. Canadian Tire is a major Canadian retailer listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $11 bn.

The other commercial brand I tasted is the Longo’s in-house brand. You can buy a 500 mL glass bottle for $7.99. The Empire Company recently purchased a 51% stake in the Longo’s grocery chain for a cool $357 million. Like Canadian Tire, the Empire Company is a major Canadian retailer listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $7 bn.

The third bottle, of course, comes from Williams Farm. He sells in both glass bottles and plastic and charges $26 for a liter.

One obvious difference between the 3 bottles is that you have no idea where the commercially branded syrup comes from. In all likelihood, it comes from large scale operations in Québec. But in the case of the Williams Farm syrup, you can visit their web site where John encourages you to drop by for a visit. If it’s not the middle of maple syrup season, you may be able to twist his arm for a tour of the sugar bush.

Another obvious difference between the 3 bottles is that when you pour the syrup into tasting glasses, they have wildly different colour profiles. Longo’s is light. Frank is dark. And Williams sits in the middle. In fact, I’m inclined to say that both commercial brands have been mislabeled. If not, then Longo’s is skirting mighty close to the border between Golden and Amber. Meanwhile, Frank is skirting mighty close to the border between Amber and Dark.

Because the colour profiles are so different, I found I couldn’t give them a fair tasting without first wrapping the glasses in duct tape, labeling the underside of each, and then asking my handy tasting assistant to shuffle the glasses while my back was turned. In fact, that didn’t really make any difference because each syrup also has a distinctive viscosity profile that corresponds to the colour profile and is obvious on the tongue. A wine taster might call it mouthfeel. The Golden felt more fluid while the Dark felt thicker and the Amber sat between the two.

In terms of taste, the Longo’s was good as what the PPAQ describes as Golden / Delicate Taste. Similarly, the Williams Farm was good as Amber / Rich Taste, a little thicker and more full bodied than the Longo’s. Then came Frank, darker and viscous. As with the other two syrups, it was sweet on the front. However, I detected an unexpected hint of bitterness on the finish. My personal view is that, taken together with the fact that it seems to be mislabeled, the Frank is a hard no.

While my personal tasting can’t stand as proof of anything, it does suggest an answer to my opening question. Maple syrup is NOT a fungible product. Three different bottles all claiming to be the same grade can, in fact, contain wildly different expressions of the product.

In an earlier post, we saw how sap collected in the sugar bush and delivered to the barn is then passed through the RO (reverse osmosis) machine to increase the sugar concentration. From there, it goes on to the evaporator where the boiling sap passes back and forth through a series of channels until it reaches the magic concentration of 66 ºBrix.

Large scale operations sometimes use evaporators heated with fuel oil. At Williams Farm, John heats the evaporator with a wood fire. There are a couple reasons for doing this. The first is that most of the wood is culled from the property as part of the natural process of managing the sugar bush. Using it as a natural fuel is a useful way to dispose of the logs. The second reason is more speculative. Many artisanal producers insist there is no substitute for a wood fire. Certainly, when you stand in the barn during a boil and you breathe in that campfire smell, there’s something about it … it smells like home. Does that “hearth and home” smell make its way into the product?

If you were to talk to large producers in Québec, they would probably say no, it makes no difference how you heat an evaporator. In fact, the PPAQ or Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec, is premised on the idea that maple syrup is perfectly fungible. The PPAQ wouldn’t act as the clearing house for more than 70% of the global maple syrup supply unless it believed that the product from one place is no different than the product from another place.

However, artisanal producers tend to regard what they do more as a craft or, in the case of indigenous producers, as a practice invested with a spiritual dimension. On their view, there are subtle ways in which every step of the process contributes to the flavour, from care of the trees and soil in the sugar bush, to decisions around pest management, all the way to the logs that fire the evaporator. They sometimes draw an analogy to wine-making. Small wineries who craft their vintages from grapes grown in local vineyards will speak of the terroir, fermentation practices and barrel aging to distinguish their wines from large producers who treat wine-making more like chemistry.

Once upon a time, maple syrup producers would have collected their sap and, one way or another, delivered it straight to the evaporator. Not any more. As with most areas of life, maple syrup production has leveraged technology to make the process more efficient. In this instance, that technology is reverse osmosis. Most modern producers have introduced reverse osmosis as an intermediate step along the way.

The primary object of maple syrup production is to take tree sap with a low concentration of sugar and turn it into syrup with a high concentration of sugar. As with wine, the sugar concentration is measured as degrees Brix (ºBx). Because I was never any good at high school chemistry and don’t understand the technical explanation of what this means, I prefer to use the rule of thumb that 1 degree Brix represents a 1% solution of sugar. Sap straight out of the tree has a concentration of between 1.5% and 3.5% sugar depending on a variety of factors like the health of the trees and the number of leaves in the crown. To qualify as maple syrup, a producer has to up the concentration to 66 Brix or 66% sugar by volume. Traditionally, that meant running the sap through an evaporator to boil off most of the water. Now, reverse osmosis gives the evaporator a head start.

The big advantage of reverse osmosis is that it reduces the boiling time in the evaporator. If you double the concentration of sap from 2% to 4%, you halve the boiling time. In a process which is time sensitive, that saving can make all the difference.

There is an ongoing debate about flavour. Detractors suggest that reverse osmosis makes the syrup taste “processed.” In fairness, that criticism applies to high-Brix sap i.e. reverse osmosis that produces a high sugar concentration so that it only takes a few minutes in the evaporator to produce the syrup. For those who go more gently, the results are virtually indistinguishable. Some argue that the key to true maple syrup flavour is exposure to wood smoke; as long as the sap is in the evaporator for a reasonable length of time, it won’t matter that it arrived there via reverse osmosis. It reminds me of the debate around Islay single malt whisky and the origin of its peaty flavour. In the end, you have to let your taste buds be your guide. That, at least, is my humble opinion.

In the image above, we see two 10,000 litre tanks for holding sap. In the image below, we see John Williams installing a reverse osmosis machine. He is drilling a hole through the ceiling directly underneath the two 10,000 litre tanks.

In the image above, John Williams inspects sap lines as they approach the lowest point on his farm. I hope John forgives me, but I like to compare him to the Lorax, the Dr. Seuss character who speaks for the trees. Yes, the maple trees yield up something wonderful, but this isn’t a one-sided relationship. If he doesn’t do things for the trees in return, then in the long run they produce less sap. John is something of a tree whisperer whose aim is to strike a balance that ensures the long-term health of the sugar bush.

To that end, John adheres to a number of best practices that promote the health of individual trees and the overall health of the bush. For example, tap holes are, in effect, an injury to the tree in the same way that an injection site is an injury to a person’s skin. Neither is a serious injury, but in both cases you have to take care all the same.

It turns out, the best way to heal a tap hole is not to plug it with something, but to leave it be. Use a sharp bit when drilling the hole. That avoids splitting the inner bark and minimizing the size of the wound. Drill at a slight upward angle so that moisture drains out; otherwise, when residual moisture refreezes, it expands and can potentially split the bark. And remove weak and damaged trees to promote the overall health of the remaining trees, making it easier for them to heal.