Maple Syrup, Healthy? And How Can I Get Some?!

I grew up eating maple syrup. I mean the real stuff. On our family farm in northern Ontario, we have thousands of maple tree's, and for generations "The Vine Brothers" have produced maple syrup.

Some of my favourite childhood memories are during maple syrup season; the amazing smell when you opened the door of the sugar shack, or grandma packing up lunch so we could have a "picnic" in the shack, or getting to taste the fresh warm maple syrup, or proudly bringing my friends back to the sugar bush to see how syrup was made.

It all started over 50 years ago with my great grandfather, then my grandfather and his brothers, and now my dad and brothers have taken it over. A lot has changed over the years. I shared a bit about this in a post a couple years back.

(Picture by Roger P. Mulligan)

One thing I didn't appreciate about maple syrup until very recently, is the health benefits associated to it. It's an amazing natural sweetener. It contains fewer calories and a higher concentrate of minerals than honey. For example, it's an excellent source of manganese and zinc with are important allies in the immune system.

The trace mineral manganese is an essential cofactor in a number of enzymes important in energy production and antioxidant defenses. And the zinc supplied by maple syrup, in addition to acting as an antioxidant, has other functions that can decrease the progression of atherosclerosis.

You can read more about the benefits of maple syrup here, including how it supports the reproductive health of men. True story.

Moving on...

A delightful new addition to the Vines Maple Syrup family is our homemade maple butter. This stuff is pure gold. It's made solely from our maple syrup, with nothing else is added to it. My favourite is putting it on a warm biscuit or piece of toast.

For years we were not able to advertise our maple syrup because we simply didn't make enough to go around. We had a waiting list. That was then. That was when a good year was 150-175 gallons. So far this year, Vine Brother's have made 900 gallons, and we're still boiling like crazy! So we find ourselves in new territory. We actually want to publicize our maple syrup. I am hoping to get a website set up soon. But this may take time.

For now, if you are interested in ordering maple syrup, email me at vinebrothersmaplesyrup@gmail.com and we'll do our best to get you some syrup.

Two shipping options:
1) It can always be shipped directly to you. This will cost extra.
2) If we get enough orders in a specific region (ie. Southern Ontario) we can arrange for a shipment to that region. Depending on where the region is, this may cost extra.

Price list for Maple Syrup:
$55 for 4L
$35 for 2L
$20 for 1L
$12.00 for 500ml
$7.00 for 250ml

Price list for Maple Butter
$8 for 250 grams
$15 for 500 grams