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The Difference Between Each Grade Of Maple Syrup And How Best To Use Them By Holly Riddle Oct. 13, 2025 9:40 am EST
When you're perusing your way down the breakfast aisle at the grocery store, you'll be greeted by a plethora of syrup options. Plastic jugs shaped like little women. Glass bottles touting maple leaves and lumberjacks. It's all the same at the end of the day, though, right?
Absolutely not, and if you say this to someone from one of the country's top maple syrup-producing states — Vermont and New York — you're likely to be on the receiving end of an impassioned rebuttal. For maple syrup to be called maple syrup, it must meet the U.S. Department of Agriculture definition of the product, which is, "the liquid food derived by concentrating and heat