Maple Syrup vs Pine Syrup?
I guess this is another one of those strange persistent mental connections… for some reason when I think of "maple syrup" I picture pine trees. When I think of trees being tapped, and sap being drained and collected to make maple syrup – I picture pine trees. Why? I don't know.
Here's the questions though: does anyone make Pine Syrup? I've never seen it. I've never heard of it. Is there a technical issue that makes it impractical to make syrup from pine sap? Does it taste horrible?
Edit (9/20/09):
I've found these available on amazon. They aren't made from the tree sap like maple syrup is, but I guess they're still considered "pine syrup". One is a "pine cone syrup" and the other a "pine code bud syrup". They both appear to be the exact same product though (same size, same manufacturer), just sold by two different shops. I couldn't find any "pine needle syrup".
Tags: maple syrup, pine bud syrup, pine cone syrup, pine needle syrup, pine syrup
spudart (587 comments) said,
don't they make lysol out of pine syrup?
August 3, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
sparx (662 comments) said,
I think you're thinking Pine-sol – which is pine scented (the original pine scented one at least).
Lysol, I believe, is mostly ethanol, with some other crazy thingies added that I can't remember.
August 4, 2009 @ 8:15 am
Tom (45 comments) said,
As someone who grew up in the middle of pine trees I can tell you that pine sap is evil, sticky, tacky, unctous stuff. I don't know if Pine Sol is made with pine "syrup", but I know in Greece they make a wine from pine needles, and you can make a tea with them too.
August 4, 2009 @ 8:38 am
sparx (662 comments) said,
Pine sap is evil.. and doesn't flow anything like maple tree sap.
It seems like it would just be more work to make pine syrup, and that it would end up costing considerably more than maple. But since I've never seen expensive pine syrup… I'm going to have to come to the conclusion that it must taste horrible.
August 4, 2009 @ 8:44 am
sparx (662 comments) said,
Now you know what you've got me thinking about?!
Maple wine.
If you watered down maple syrup, and then added your yeast to it and let it ferment.. what would you have? The fermentation would remove a great deal of the sweetness, leaving an alcohol infused liquid with a hint of maple.. and hopefully not an overwhelming sweetness.
August 4, 2009 @ 8:47 am
Cactus Joe (66 comments) said,
Some pine trees are toxic. Ever see any grass growing under a pine tree? No. Why? Pine needles have an acidic component that nukes everything they touch.
August 4, 2009 @ 9:40 am
sparx (662 comments) said,
Neat.. I just looked it up.
Pine tar is slightly toxic.
And used as an insecticide and microbiocide.
I guess this question is answered. Thanks Joe!
August 4, 2009 @ 9:45 am
unlikelymoose (331 comments) said,
Let's leave our trees alone. Poor trees. You saps trying to extract delicious pancake toppings from our trees. Let the trees be. Let the trees be.
August 6, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
sparx (662 comments) said,
Psh.. you tree huggers.
Most pancake toppings are just flavored corn syrup anyway. Are you going to try to give a voice to the corn as well now?
August 6, 2009 @ 12:56 pm
spudart (587 comments) said,
sounds like you discovered the secret ingredient to Coca-Cola. Pine tar!
August 17, 2009 @ 7:44 am
Dan (2 comments) said,
Actually, there IS a syrup made from pine tar. I just discovered it on my trip to Finland last week. It smells like, well, pine. It's a sugar syrup, like maple syrup, and it's VERY tasty. Unfortunately, it seems to be absolutely impossible to obtain in the US.
Slightly more info:
http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/the-worlds-strangest-souvenirs/1
August 22, 2009 @ 8:33 pm
cdozo (1 comments) said,
There is a Pine Needle Syrup. I'd never heard of it until I read the post at http://community.livejournal.com/food_porn/5554897.html?style=mine#cutid1. It intrigued me so I did some searching.
See http://www.google.com/search?q=pine+needle+syrup&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a.
On a side note, Euell Gibbons tells about his experiments with eating different parts of a pine tree at http://www.ruralvermont.com/vermontweathervane/issues/winter/97012/eatpine.shtml.
September 20, 2009 @ 10:01 am
Matt (2 comments) said,
I've tried pine sap before (this was freshly run sap, not the stuff that settles after a few hours) and it was actually pretty tasteless. Of course, the flavor could be different depending on the season and the species of the pine. The particular species I tapped it from was the Pinus taeda, also known as the Loblolly pine.
November 8, 2009 @ 9:20 pm
sparx (662 comments) said,
I think you'll find the same with maple sap though. The maple sap is boiled down to just a fraction of its original volume – I think it's something like 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.
If you took 1 spoonful of syrup and added 39 spoonfuls of water to it.. the resulting "sap" would be pretty tasteless I would imagine.
November 8, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
jen (1 comments) said,
i just found some pine syrup on a shelf in belgrade, serbia. it was between the honey and jams. i think i'm going to try some the next time i'm at that store. i was going to try to read about it to see if it's comparable to maple syrup. it costs 1/5 as much as maple syrup here.
February 6, 2010 @ 4:41 am
sparx (662 comments) said,
Cool. If you do try it, let me know how it is!
February 6, 2010 @ 9:15 am
Matt (2 comments) said,
Actually, there is a pine known as the sugar pine which grows in the mountains of California and Oregon. It produces a sweet, sugary sap which is edible. In fact, John Muir preferred syrup produced by sugar pine to maple syrup. So yes, pine syrup is certainly for real (at least from sugar pine). However, this is probably not something that is going to be commercially available. So unless you plan to come out to the Sierra and try tapping sugar pines, you are out of luck. By the way, sugar pine also produces pine nuts.
March 4, 2010 @ 7:54 am