Handle with care

[hillsboro]

It would be tempting to think that the ideal sugaring weather of the past two weeks has salvaged Vermont's maple season. The combination of moderately warm days and cold nights has reinvigorated many sugarbushes, especially in high elevation or northern Vermont. The sap has cleared up and the sugar content has risen. In most respects the calender and the sap flow seem to have returned to normal. But in the most important respect the season can never recover. Good flavor is gone. It vanished and it won't return until 2013. The flavor since the record-setting warm spell is horrible and it can't be blended away. It stinks, literally and figuratively. There are some valid economic reasons to make it, but only if it never makes its way into a consumer package. This syrup needs to be handled with care. There is a risk that this syrup---if handled improperly could become a hazardous product.
Here's how: A family comes to Vermont for a ski weekend. They pay good money for a jug of pure Vermont metabolic maple syrup. They return home, anticipating their gourmet breakfast. The following morning the bacon sizzles. The waffles are ready. They pour their syrup on their waffles---take a bite, then look at each other and say "Whoa, I'm never going to buy that again".
So, if you've made some of this syrup, please be restrained---and make sure that it ends up where it belongs. The season was bad enough. Let's make sure we don't shrink the market too.

[802maple]

Thank you neighbor for saying that,I couldn't have said it better. I wish I had crawled up over the bank to see you this spring, just never got there