Happy National Maple Syrup Day!

Maple syrup is perhaps the best discovery ever made for breakfast. It makes your morning just that much sweeter, and whoever discovered maple syrup candied bacon was a verifiable genius. December 17th is National Maple Syrup Day, and to celebrate our favorite breakfast condiment, we did a bit of digging on how it was discovered and how it’s made!
There are many legends behind the discovery of maple syrup, but the best is that of an Iroquois woman. Chief Wokis, before heading out to hunt one morning, pulled his tomahawk from a nearby tree. It was winter, but on this day it was unseasonably warm and a liquid ran from the tree to a container. His wife, thinking it was water, cooked it over the fire (thus making the syrup) with his meal, making it particularly sweet and delicious.
Maple syrup is made almost exactly the same since that day a few centuries ago, with just a few technological advances. It can only be collected from late winter to early spring, as that is when the trees produce the particular kind of sap that makes maple syrup. This time of the year the Iroquois called the “sugar moon,” and for good reason.
The trees are tapped and the sap is collected. There it is sent to boil. As the water from the sap evaporates it becomes denser and sweeter and sweeter. Numbers fact: 40 liters of sap boils down to about one liter of syrup. From there the syrup is packaged and sent to our breakfast tables!
We love maple syrup at Sunny Street and drizzle it over our favorite breakfast dishes. We keep it warm so when it comes to your table it is at maximum drizzle temperature. There’s nothing quite like warm maple syrup over pancakes in the morning. Happy National Maple Syrup Day!