How Many Ingredients are in Maple Syrup?

My little nephew Garrin is spending the night with us tonight, so while Chris was out running some errands today, I asked him to pick up some blueberry pancake makings, and maple syrup. I have an organic maple syrup in the pantry, and was pretty sure that Garrin would rather have Aunt Jemima's or something similar.

When Chris got home, he plunked a bottle of this down on the counter:

"What IS that???" I thought. Of course I have seen it on the shelf, but we have NEVER bought it in all of the almost 10 years that we have been together. I asked him about it and he said that he was pretty sure it was the best maple syrup out there.

"What??" I said. "Yes, and Kimmy thinks so too," he said, talking about his sister back in Massachsuetts. He even called her and got her on speaker phone so we could ask her.

"Ahhhh, no." she said. "The best is Vermont Made." (I tried Googling it Kimmy, but I couldn't find it. Do you mean made in Vermont, or is that a brand name?)

Now, this got me thinking about when I was a kid in Maine and my Dad used to tap the sugar maples, harvest the sap, (see pic below)

and get a big HUGE container of sap boiling early in the morning. It looked a lot like this one:
He would boil it all day long until it was dark and thick, and then we would can it. It was THE BEST maple syrup I have ever had.

At the end of the day, he would scrape down the sides and put the amber-colored, glassy strips in my sister Amy's and my hands for a one-of-a-kind sugary treat. YUM!!!

So I was looking at the ingredient list for the Log Cabin syrup. Here it is:


And then I looked at the organic syrup that I had:

Here is the ingredient list:


I know it is blurry. Can you read it? PURE ORGANIC MAPLE SYRUP. As it should be.

Anyhow, it doesn't matter. The boys will all have a choice tomorrow. And someday, when the sap starts running, I'll take my boy back to Maine and have his Grandpa show him how the real stuff is made, and put some maple candy fresh from the pot in his hand.