My wife is making cinnamon waffles for breakfast. We have a big jug of Costco maple syrup out on the table. It is made in Canada and the next shipment will be hit by a 25% tariff.
I’m thinking about substitutes. There are two basic substitutes for Canadian maple syrup; first there is US maple syrup and then there is maple flavored and colored high fructose corn syrup sold as pancake syrup. US maple syrup ranges from really good (Vermont) to adequate (Ohio and elsewhere). Pancake syrup’s primary differentiator is that it is CHEAP.
Some people are maple syrup only people. Some people will switch between maple syrup and pancake syrup. My family has a strong maple syrup preference but not a strong preference between good US and good Canadian syrup. We bought Canadian because it was available at a good price at Costco. We would substitute US syrup next fall when we run out of our current stockpile. One of my friends and likely future co-author has STRONG preferences on their syrup and likely won’t substitute Quebec syrup for anything else. They will pay the higher price. We are less likely to pay an extra five dollars a quart for Canadian syrup. Instead we’ll increase demand for American syrup; increased demand means higher prices. The US syrup price won’t go up as much as the Canadian price will increase but it will increase.
Now I have to go eat some waffles and think through the dynamic pricing effects of tariffs. I have pity for the folks who study US spirit pricing and logistics as things are highly likely to get WEIRD there now and in the next few weeks even as the Great Lakes automobile manufacturing cluster gets creaky.
MomSense
Maine and Vermont also produce maple syrup. Sadly, the sap has not been so good the last few years. It takes about 10 times as much to get the same amount of syrup. That’s what my friend who is a producer tells me.
I need to find an alternative for my heating oil. Ugh
ETA our lobsters are heading north as well so we will need to buy more from
Canada.
Central Planning
We are maple syrup snobs in that we won’t use the fake stuff. I’ll skip pancakes/waffles at a restaurant if it’s the fake stuff.
My favorite breakfast joint made the best pancakes but served the fake syrup. I would bring my own and it turned those pancakes into something out of this world.
Jerry
(David, are you on Bluesky?)
JKC
@MomSense: Here in upstate NY there’s locally produced maple syrup, so I have that small measure of comfort.
I am dreading the next heating oil delivery, though.
David Collier-Brown
A word of warning: prices will increase without bound.
Mr. Trudeau will be applying an identical tariff on US products, partially delayed one month.
Mr. Trump promises to raise US tariffs when Canada does so.
Whereupon Canadian tariffs will increase to match US ones, probably with a one-month delay.
Rise, repeat.
Phylllis
CBS news did a story before the election about a small business that carried higher-end wine, liquors, and foodstuffs somewhere in Georgia where the owner was bemoaning the impact of inflation on his business. Of course, the underlying intent of the story was ‘here’s another way Biden has failed you and is hurting small business’. Wonder how that business owner feels today?
Another Scott
We’ve been to Banff several times (for conferences), Quebec a few times (conferences, vacation), and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick once (vacation). It’s a beautiful country, easy to navigate (except for Quebec – they’re determined to be as aggressively Francophone as possible, but the people are still nice and friendly), and reasonably priced. I wouldn’t be surprised if tourism from the US suffers during these times as well, and that would be very, very bad for Banff and Jasper and the other tourist towns out there.
It’s all so stupid.
Donnie is determined to make everyone else kneel, to be the “decider”, to get in on the vig on every transation.
And the cowardly GQP majority is unwilling to stop him before he does a tremendous amount of damage.
Rev.com:
Whatever happened to that guy??
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
rodwell
Also, New Hampshire produces Maple Syrup. NH Syrup is my preferences. Of course, I lived in NH for ten years and I think there is a law stating that if you are a resident of NH, you cannot use Vermont Maple Syrup.
Barry
@Phylllis: The owner will go out of business blaming DEI.
The Thin Black Duke
@Barry: Good.
David Anderson
@Jerry: https://bsky.app/profile/dmaanderson.bsky.social
Professor Bigfoot
Fortunately I don’t have the taste buds to demand real maple syrup; “pancake syrup” works just fine– no doubt from a lifetime’s acclimatization, but I digress-
I pulled the trigger on those electric bikes I mentioned a few weeks ago to beat the tariffs on Chinese goods, but, what CAN we do ante to cushion the blow?
Starfish (she/her)
When I lived in Maryland, we would put in a group order from Baer Brothers Maple Camp in Pennsylvania. If we could get people to put in a $150 order, they would deliver. I liked their Grade B maple syrup. Grade A was just too sweet for me, and Grade B had a more complex flavor
Update: Do you think Cole will mind if we have several gallons of maple syrup delivered to his home while he is away?
Spanky
@MomSense:
You heat with maple syrup? Quel snobbery!
Seriously though, it’s time to figure out if it’s cheaper over ~ 10 year period to switch to heat pump/mini-splits. Our Mitsubishi unit has an auxiliary heater for temps below 10F.
azlib
The bigger problem with tariffs on Canada and Mexico is the disruption of supply chains between the 3 countries. Those supply chains which cross borders multiple times were created with the expectation that tariffs would be low over a long period of time. As a result, the system is efficient and highly productive and benefits all 3 countries. With Trump’s tariff move auto prices will rise in all 3 countries. He has in effect recreated the supply chain disruption of the COVID pandemic.
narya
@Starfish (she/her): I wonder if they’d mail it . . .
Because I could easily come up with $150 of products.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I imagine prices may also get weird in the EU, given knock-off effects from the US/Canada/Mexico trade war, but I won’t even pretend to guess at which way things will go. China’s made a lot of inroads to the EU and there aren’t punitive tarrifs hitting that interchange channel.
Honestly, I don’t see the US being trusted for the rest of the century unless the backlash to what’s coming includes Republicans being given cigarettes and stood in front of stone walls.
tobie
I’m trying to figure out what the effects of this trade war will be on Mexico and Canada. If I were in the Mexican or Canadian government I would be working to establish a free-trade zone for all of the Americas minus the US. We’re the bully chucking our weight around. Time to have our asses whupped.
Baud
Reagan, via Reddit.
David Anderson
@azlib: oh completely agree…. The auto industry logistics managers have to be white knuckling now
Hunter Gathers
@azlib: The increase in the price of auto parts is going to be pretty hard for Trump’s goobers to paper over.
They days of affordable replacement parts (starter, alternator, etc.) are over.
RepubAnon
@David Collier-Brown: Well, the voters thought it would be a good idea if Trump ran the country like he ran his businesses. Pity they mistook “The Apprentice” for reality.
rodwell
@azlib: Also, the aerospace industry is interconnected between the three countries. There are a lot of major aerospace firms that have operations in Mexico and Canada and there is cross border transit of parts to various factory. Additionally, Canada supplies aluminum to US manufacturing plants that produce finish goods (automotive, aerospace, etc.). They are going to take a big hit in their cost structure. The US does not produce enough Aluminum to cover this.
Starfish (she/her)
@narya: They seem to have an online store so they might ship stuff. I bet shipping expenses are high though because gallons of maple syrup are heavy.
cmorenc
One of the most potent motivations driving Trump’s obsession with tariffs is his notion that the revenue therefrom can be used to replace revenue from the income tax – especially the hole the planned extension of high-income tax cuts would cause. The tariffs are a way to flatten the income tax.
Barbara
@RepubAnon: Trump’s business strategy was charging high prices for inferior products and stiffing vendors and banks, and then declaring bankruptcy when that wasn’t enough. This has been so well-known for so long that it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that his voters are willing marks.
rikyrah
@David Anderson:
Thank you. Just followed 🤗
rikyrah
Looking forward to the 100% tariff on Teslas 🤗
artem1s
@MomSense:
maple sap production is dependent on fluctuation of temperatures during the season. If the winter is generally steady and warm with no extreme cold/freeze cycles, that = less sap. Ohio’s production of maple syrup has declined over the last 3 decades and it had as much to do with cutting down acreages of woodland for subdivisions as it does to with warmer winters. Even the small ‘gentleman’ farmers with their giant trucks they use when the drive to diners and spend all day being interviewed by TFYNYT have noticed this. Of course they blame it on Jewish space lasers or Biden or Obama or underpants gnomes not doing their jobs – not Climate Change.
This recent warmongering about doing a manifest destiny land grab of Canadian territories is TCF and Exxons’ jealousy of Putin being able to mine and drill for more petrochemicals as the Siberia tundra melts. They are no longer going to be content with pillaging and destroying Alaska’s natural resources. TAR SANDS Civil War is what they are trying to get their northern MAGAts to start.
cmorenc
@Barbara: you left out the significant portion of Trump’s real estate business was selling condos at inflated prices to Russian mafia/oligarchs to facilitate money laundering, which was not incompatible with his other business methods you listed. I cannot fathom how much of the US business community failed to respect the clue that US banks would no longer lend to Trump because of his poor track record on repayment.
Barbara
@cmorenc: It’s like imposing a particularly erratic VAT on consumers. The idea that “other” people pay it is like saying you didn’t pay for shipping on a purchase because you didn’t personally write a check to UPS.
Kay
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/01/jpmorgan-gold-bullion-trump-tariffs
JP Morgan delivers 4 billion in gold bullion.
Soapdish
@MomSense:
Vermont lobsters?
Ohio Mom
@azlib: Ohio’s recently-elected Senator, Bernie Moreno (he beat out Sherrod Broen, sob), made his money with at least one car dealership — I don’t know the details, like what kind of cars, and I believe he did a sleight of hand upon running and gave his son ownership — and I wonder if he’s figured out what these tariffs are going to cost him. I wouldn’t bet on it, he doesn’t seem that smart to me.
Barbara
@artem1s: Yes, I’m sure that accounts for the focus on Greenland as well.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@tobie: I read that Canada has been setting up a tariff free zone between provinces, excluding Alberta, I think.
Fair Economist
I try to avoid sweets (not always successfully) and on the rare occasions I do have maple syrup I get the real stuff.
Geminid
@rodwell: There are maple syrup tappers in Highland County, Virginia. That’s 75 miles west of me “as the crow flies.” Volume of production is not very high, maybe enough for tourists and to supply the biannual Monterey Maple Syrup Festival.
A friend visiting the Festival made a good find, a man selling Chinquapin saplings. Chinquapins are similar to Chestnuts but the trees and nuts are smaller. The man lived in nearby West Virginia, and said that when he bought his land he found a lot of Chinquapins growing on it. Later he found out why: there used to be a Native village nearby.
Ohio Mom
@cmorenc: That is the sort of math problem that is beyond me (plus I have no numbers to plug in). If sales drop because tariffs make goods more expensive, how much income can the government really expect?
Kay
Trump said “there could be some temporary, short-term disruption and people will understand that”.
Ah, yes. The same tough as nails Americans who pitched a huge hissy fit when inflation hit 4%. I’m sure they’ll understand that the United States is now experimenting with a tech bro fascist fantasy and that’s why lumber prices doubled.
NotMax
The syrup dilemma is easy enough. Buy another jug now.
Real maple syrup, stored tightly capped in a dark pantry (never, ever in the fridge) will last for a long time. Have a Costco jug at least three years old which finished off last Thankxgiving. And that’s in tropical Hawaii,
Two things which do not require refrigeration: peanut butter (standard commercial kind, not “natural”) and maple syrup.
Citizen Dave
Watched the NBC Nightly news last night–long explainer on things that might go up in price, with an auto shop in Jersey, etc. Then one line that t____p was doing this to prevent fentanyl from coming into the country. Nothing further–no digging into what that means, was there analysis, costs/benfits, how much fentanyl is coming in, what is the goal of the new tariffs, etc. (I know it’s all chaos).
Our failed media.
And it’s like our president is trying to crash our country…can’t imagine why…(see comment #30)
We have a Costco maple syrup in the fridge right now. Tends to stay there for years–only used occasionally for pancakes.
Llelldorin
I won’t substitute with Maine syrup. They’ve got to learn to stop electing Susan Collins somehow.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Phylllis:
Depends on how MAGAt they are. If fully in the cult, it’ll still be Biden’s fault.
rodwell
@Geminid: I know there are other parts of the country that tapped for Maple Syrup. There is some in New Jersey where I live now. Just that in Northern New England Maple Syrup is a thing there.
ArchTeryx
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That is correct. Alberta is openly Trump-curious and wants to join in with his tariffs, so they’re being excluded from the compact. Lie down with dogs…
MomSense
@Spanky:
I had 5 Mitsubishi units in my previous home. It was very expensive because our electricity provider is horrific. It would only make sense to switch if I install solar.
Geminid
@Kay: Elon Musk said his proposed policies would result in a couple tough years economically but would be very beneficial in the long run.
But Musk is no economist; from what I’ve seen, he is an intellectual dilettante who thinks he knows a lot more than he does.
John S.
@Kay:
This will be the ultimate test of how broken this country is.
Will the same people who were so pissed off about egg prices that they were willing to punish Democrats also flip out at Trump for blowing up the prices of everything?
I’m not so sure.
Llelldorin
@Geminid: At least he should learn Keynes’s famous maxim:
“In the long run, we’re all dead.”
“Transient pain” lasting 30-50 years is the rest of my life and then some.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Geminid: Musk is also just as full of shit as Trump.
He lies with impunity, but people hear what they want to hear.
Lethe
Since the election, any plans have done a screeching 180. Now doing a road trip down the AlCan in a month or so, hopefully before gas skyrockets. Been looking for a new (used) car, and finally decided to go retrieve my old Jeep Cherokee instead. I’ve got stocked up parts for it, much easier to bring it here than take them there. An electric bike is the next project I hope.
I might stock up on Alaskan birch syrup while I’m there. (It’s not the same as maple, I know, but it all depends on what you grow up with) Birch syrup and fresh picked wild raspberries take me straight to being 5 years old…
Betty Cracker
This post made me curious about the current price difference between 100% maple syrup and the pancake variety. So I looked it up at our local Walmart site. Here’s the per-fluid-ounce price comparison, rounded to the nearest penny:
Maple Grove Farms Organic 100% Maple*: $.82
Mrs. Butterworth: $.14
Walmart store brand: $.10
*U.S. product; didn’t see a Canadian option.
Quinerly
Left this on a dying thread.
I have to get moving this AM. Can’t really format excerpts on this phone.
Must read, imo.
Timothy Snyder
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-of-destruction?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
Chief Oshkosh
@Geminid: Here is Timothy Snyder, saying that there is no “long run” for us, only for the oligarchs:
https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/the-logic-of-destruction?r=1yjc6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=emai
ETA: Missed it by *that* much…
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@rikyrah:
Slightly related, “decorating” a Wankpanzer:
https://x.com/Louniki_/status/1885773869627089407
More to your comment:
https://insideevs.com/news/715427/tesla-ev-production-shanghai-vs-global/
Half of all Teslas are built in China. Thing is, those Tesla aren’t necessarily built for sale here in ‘Murka.
What’s harder to find is the international sourcing of parts that might be affected by Hair Furor’s tariffs. That being said, given that every Tesla is eligible for the $7500 federal tax credit, tariff impact could be minimal:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g43675128/cars-eligible-for-ev-tax-credit/
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
An alternative to real maple syrup that I grew up with is double-thick simple sugar syrup with maple flavoring added. It’s what my mom had grown up with in the depression, and she actually preferred it to the real thing. It’s not bad, but it does taste better if you make the syrup with 1/2 brown sugar and it’s a LOT better than that high-fructose stuff in a bottle. Didn’t fool my New England husband though.
OlFroth
Its not like you can ramp up US maple syrup production to meet the demand either.
NotMax
South St. Louis Mexican restaurants in a tizzy.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=okkkj7dDnW0&pp=ygUPc291dGggc3QuIGxvdWlz
Captain Sunshine
There’s good maple syrup in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, too. Well, I think so. I go there every year and stocked up on accident this past summer, since I forgot I had most of a quart of it in the ‘fridge and a quart on the shelf. Just me here, so that will last me a while.
A local producer outside Chassell sells at the local farmers’ markets and the tori in Hancock (always worth a visit), along with fruits (strawberries!), and leaves bottles of syrup on a table in front of their home with a lockbox for payment.
jonas
NY is a big maple-producing state as well, and it’s gotten really expensive the past couple of years — used be something like $6-8/pt. Now you can hardly find any under $15/pt. Part of that is just the inflation we’ve been seeing the past several years, but also the fact that warmer winters mean the sap doesn’t concentrate sugars the same way because the trees don’t need to store as much energy, and earlier and more erratic thaws make it harder to tap effectively. It takes tons more sap to make the same amount of sugar. Now we’re having an old-fashioned, bitterly cold winter this year, so we’ll see if that makes some difference.
My teenager eats *a lot* of frozen waffles and we just get her the supermarket pancake syrup for those. We have a quart of the real stuff on hand for special weekend breakfasts and the occasional recipe that calls for it. We’ve always bought the local stuff to support our local farmers, so more expensive Canadian syrup won’t impact our buying habits much. If the US-produced product starts getting *really* ridiculously expensive, though, then it will probably drop off our shopping list for the foreseeable future.
Librettist
Karo is super sweet, but that’s what they used. Mix it with melted butter if you are some kind of gourmand.
artem1s
@Baud:
like RMoneyCare, NAFTA was Big Auto’s wet dream. They intended to use it to bust unions and EPA regulations by moving assembly and manufacturing to mostly Mexico so they wouldn’t have to rely on parts shipped from China and SE Asia.
The Dem led Congresses helped keep labor and environmental regs in the trade bill which meant manufacturers had to comply with minimum standards. Then NAFTA suddenly became the part of the central axis of evil campaign issue to unseat Democrats who had supported the bill. Reality is Ohio and the few remaining manufacturing states benefited from NAFTA. Ohio imports to Mexico and Canada increased those first few years before the GOP/W administrations started fucking with it. If want to understand why Ohio elected a used car salesman instead of reelecting Sherrod Brown who had a history of protecting US labor, manufacturing and unions, you have to go back to the early days of NAFTA. The W administration stopped oversight of the labor and environmental laws to appease US manufacturers and so they could by cheaper parts and undercut Japanese, Korean and Chinese suppliers.
The big recall of airbags a few years ago was the result of Mexican based manufacturer (contracted by the Chinese company Takata) to supply assembly plants in the US and western hemisphere. They misused ammonium nitrate as an accelerant instead of more expensive chemicals. The machinery that was used seal the bags was not inspected regularly or properly and that allowed moisture to seep into the bags over time effectively turning the airbage into IEDs.
Employees and chemists at the plant tried to intervene due to workers safety concerns, but Mexican labor and environmental laws didn’t require the same level of compliance that the US does. The media of course rarely, if ever mentioned that the recall was only for the bags made at this one plant. And that they were cutting cost on behalf of US based Toyata, Honda and other Asian, non-union assembly plants. They had no problem blaming the Chinese based Takata of course. Airbags made in SE Asia didn’t have to be recalled.
This was straight up a result of deregulation and defying labor laws meant to protect workers. The plant caught on fire and exploded in 2006 but US based assembly plants still were allowed to use the bags for a decade later. The DC airplane/helo accident is just one of a string of disasters that will accelerate now that Companies civil rights are more important that people’s civil rights.
tobie
I just read this article saying that OpenAI has been given a contract to run nuclear security systems. Please, Lord, this can’t be true.
https://futurism.com/openai-signs-deal-us-government-nuclear-weapon-security
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: One of the schools kid was considering was in Québec. I nudged her toward it in part to get her out of the US in case things went south, but it happened at the moment when the Québécois government was starting to put punitive restrictions on these Anglophone universities over French-language-nationalist sentiments, and she sensed that being a foreigner from the US there was going to become a problem. And, guess what–it would probably have been out of the frying pan, into the fire, though she wouldn’t have had American-style religious conservatism to deal with on top of it.
Matt McIrvin
@David Collier-Brown: There’s always a bound. You just don’t always want to know what the bound is.
Suzanne
We are not big maple syrup consumers here — use maybe one jug a year — but one thing I was thinking about yesterday was produce. Specifically, strawberries. I remember, when I was a kid, they were such a treat. Only in the stores for a little while each year, and they were pretty small, and pretty expensive. Now, of course, you can get them all year in the store, because for approximately half the year they are sourced from Mexico, Chile, etc. And they probably cost, in real dollars, half what they cost when I was SuzKid.
I have no way of knowing how many people have given ten seconds of thought to why we now can have strawberries all year — and thus what tariffs imply for that — but I suspect it isn’t a lot.
different-church-lady
This is obviously not a cost equivalent solution at all, but this would be a good time to support Vermont small biz, and I’ll flog Sugarbush Farm in Woodstock and Elmore Sugarhouse in Elmore (natch). Both do mail order.
I love getting syrup for tiny cottage operations up there. The best syrup I ever had came from a local pastor who would sell off the back of his pickup truck on a corner of Rt. 7 in Danby. Sadly he suffered a stroke, and that corner always seems empty whenever I drive by it now.
different-church-lady
@Citizen Dave:
The tariffs apply to fentanyl?
Kristine
I get Pappy’s Bourbon Barrel syrup, which already costs a bundle even though the maple syrup itself comes from Ohio. I only use it on my once-a-week pancakes and dole it out by the tablespoon, so even if the price goes up I’ll pay it unless/until I find something I like better. So far I’ve tried Crown and Runamok and there’s imo no comparison.
Honestly, I’m more concerned about whether the techno-takeover includes transferring the SS fund from Treasury securities to crypto.
different-church-lady
@Geminid:
Beneficial to who?
Kristine
@Starfish (she/her): I prefer Grade B syrup, but it’s hard to find.
Honus
@Geminid: I’ve been going to the Maple Festival pretty much every year for nearly 40 years. It’s not the Monterey festival, it’s all of Highland County and also maple camps in West Virginia. Typical routine is to stop in McDowell for pancakes at the school (although the Bolar Firehouse breakfast is also really good) You can also get trout for lunch in McDowell and Monterey from the local trout farms. The maple camps are open to visitors during the festival and we like to tour them and buy a gallon or two of syrup right at the source.
The syrup varies by season; a couple of years ago most of it was pretty dark, apparently due to a rainy spell. I like that it varies, and I also like to buy the less refined stuff because it has more raw maple flavor and it’s usually a little cheaper.
The festival is always two weekends in March. This year it’s the weekends of the 8th and 15th. They’re also crowning the Maple Queen at the Highland Center in Monterey on 2/22 with a band after party that’s open to the public. All the details are here:
https://www.highlandcounty.org/maple-festival/
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m 77. The “long run” is immaterial to me, except as I’d like to see American democracy survive me.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: I lurk at a few right-wing comment sections, and one sentiment that I have seen expressed multiple times — please note that I think this is a bonkers take — is the assertion that rich liberals are trying to humiliate working-class white conservative communities by getting them hooked on fentanyl. I have seen this thought expressed enough times that it might not be as fringe-y as I hope.
3Sice
@Suzanne:
Zero. Seasonal deprivation is going back 4-5 generations now. Canned fruit & vegetables is all they’re going to get.
different-church-lady
@Kristine: I’m so old I remember it used to be Grade C. Now they won’t even call it B anymore. (I’ve already forgotten the new name, it might be just Dark or Rich.)
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: Christ, I wish we were that devious.
Kristine
@Kay: IIRC, Musk said there would be two years of pain; after that, puppies and unicorns all the way.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: Ten seconds is far too much of an ask.
different-church-lady
@Kristine: Again, pain for who?
Betty
This is madness. That is all.
different-church-lady
Ah! Paul Campos is writing a book on a subject he’s an expert in:
different-church-lady
@Betty: NARRATOR: “It wasn’t all.”
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Quinerly:
@Chief Oshkosh:
Thanks for sharing this!
I thought this was an interesting point, since so much of the manufactured image of the techbro oligarchs is techno-futurism:
“Commentators should please stop using words such as “digital” and “progress” and “efficiency” and “vision” when describing this coup attempt. The plotting oligarchs have legacy money from an earlier era of software, which they are now seeking to leverage, using destructive political techniques, to destroy human institutions. That’s it. They are offering no future beyond acting out their midlife crises on the rest of us.”
cintibud
Boiling down maple sap I’ve been collecting from my large “silver” maple in the yard. Not a sugar maple, but I tried it last year and the syrup I got was quite good! Plus it’s a fun and easy hobby. Takes a lot of boiling though.
Jeffg166
I am sure the supermarket I use has already raised the price of real maple syrup. I will use honey in the future.
Kristine
@different-church-lady: I’ll keep a lookout.
I’m guessing folks steer away from terms like “Grade B” because they assume it means inferior.
catclub
We got our heat pumps just two years ago, and they claimed to work ‘well enough’ down to about -15F, so probably a generation better than yours.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: We need to not lose sight of the anti-Semitism and class hatred that idea implies. Nice white liberals who went to college are underestimating how much we are loathed as class traitors.
New Deal democrat
@tobie:
This was exactly – and I mean *exactly* – my thought earlier this morning.
Water transportation is the cheapest of all, energy-wise. Which means that shipping between Vancouver and Guadalajara on the Pacific, and Veracruz and Montreal on the Atlantic, is probably very competitive. If the rest of Latin America de facto joined the remnant Canada-Mexico free trade agreement, Canada could probably replace its entire U.S. market (especially after T—-p gets around to tariffing other Latin American countries).
If I were Canada, I would also be looking to streamline an agreement with the E.U.
Finally, I would at least consider refusing entry to any American from a county that voted for T—-p for either business or tourism.
catclub
medium amber.
catclub
@different-church-lady: Whom!
scav
Well, it’s a change from panic buying TP. I’m also rather wondering if, once the actual complexity of the North American trade interactions rears its ugly head, just about everybody will jump in with price hikes. It’s a good excuse and it’s not like this cabal is going to investigating or regulating it.
Librettist
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Historically, mature industries sitting on piles of capital would pivot to banking services, credit cards, stuff like that. Why Silicon Valley doesn’t want to grow up, idk…
Janus Daniels
Corn syrup tastes toxic and probably is. Use jam or chopped fruit or molasses or even plain sugar or…
Barbara
@Geminid: We stopped at a farmstand in Sperryville that produces its own maple syrup. We never had the real thing growing up, and I use it mostly to flavor dressings and baked goods. We used sugar and butter for pancakes and French toast.
TF79
Autarky in the USA
artem1s
@tobie: Been rewatching Agents of Shield. Episode 3.9 Broken Promises:
Mack: “Okay. First of all, that thing is not a “she” it’s a damn robot. And second of all, what’s the matter with you two chuckleheads? Have either one of you seen a movie in the last 30 years? The robots always attack.”
Radcliffe: “Well, technically speaking, Aida’s not a robot she’s an android.”
Mack: “Android, robot it doesn’t matter what you call ’em. The end result’s always the same they rise up against their human overlords and go kill crazy.”
I swear they are trying to bring on Judgement Day. Everyone of them needs to be nuked from space just to be sure we’re rid of them.
Ohio Mom
@scav: Oh yes, lots of price gouging ahead.
I already am not a big consumer of anything except food — I admit I don’t always consider price if something catches my eye, like out of season fruit or the urge to have a latte in the middle of the day. Looks like I will have to change my behavior and expand my frugality.
Ruckus
Musk has been a wealthy person or at least a member of a wealthy family that used that position in his home country to be the same pompous arrogant person he is today.
That he is basically running (SFB seems to be aging out rapidly) this country and making monetary decisions about the laws that have been voted in place by representatives of and for the people, and he has ZERO legal position in this government (yes he seems to be a citizen, I believe he took the test…) this is 100000% wrong. He has not been elected to any position of power in this country. And that’s one of the damn points of this country, that our leaders are ELECTED TO OFFICE, by a majority of us. It’s bad enough that SFB got elected – again – but this?
Geminid
@cintibud: I’ve seen bottles of hickory syrum on store shelves. I need to try that some time.
David Collier-Brown
@Dorothy A. Winsor wrote
Alberta just did one with British Columbia, so they’re probably just bullshitting about not joining the free-trade area, probably to get some kind of better deal.
Quinerly
@NotMax:
El Bronco was my favorite Cherokee Street Mexican restaurant. I lived sorta close by.
Miss Bianca
@Central Planning: We have been slowly building up the Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve at the Mountain Hacienda for some time now. I think the build-up is about to become more rapid in the very near future…
cmorenc
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: The fantasy tech broligarchs have is a hazy notion of tech oligarchs running the infrastructure of society as benign competent CEOs managing it in business-efficient ways freed from unnecessary inefficient government regulation, which somehow simultaneously frees everyone libertarian freedom in all other spheres of life. For example, the project Broligarch Mark Andresson is attempting to implement to create a semi-autonomous new glibertarian city in California (against substantial local opposition).
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’m very close behind you (age wise!) and have been paid for my work as a federal employee/servant – USN, absolutely a non democratic segment of the country – it can’t be and operate – and it is/can be a lot less fun than one might imagine. Sure I got to travel a lot, see a lot of the world and met some very interesting people – and that’s about the total positive side. Well the VA is pretty good healthcare. Oh wait, how long will it exist with SFB and his buddy??? And I EARNED the VA, what with the great pay, some of the wonderful people in charge and all. (That IS snark, just in case you were wondering)
Kelly
Oregon is the USA’s largest producer of softwood lumber so the lumber folks will like the tariffs. The lumber industry is just a few percent of Oregon’s economy either by dollars or jobs. All the profits will go to our wildly reactionary Trumpist timber barons. The industry is constrained by mill capacity and increasing production would take a few years.
WaterGirl
@David Anderson: Dave, I just changed your social media link in the sidebar to go to BlueSky.
If that’s not what you want, let me know.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I have seen this thought expressed enough times that it might not be as fringe-y as I hope.
Repetition is the basis of bullshit. Say something enough times and loud enough and people often began to believe it. Repetition is one of the bases of BS. The more people hear the BS the more it seems like it might be/must be true. And it’s worse in situations where actual truthful information can be/is scarce, say in the military.
scav
@Kelly: And, if the housing market — especially the new housing market — collapses in just those years? I’m not sure enough oligarch giga-mansions will be built to compensate.
Ruckus
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
In their cases it might be a lifelong crisis, not just mid life. Take shitforbrains – please! His entire life has been about MONEY and how much he has. His siblings, many member of his family are not money grubbers, his siblings had jobs/careers, his entire life has been about money. Not how it arrived, not if it was earned in any way, just that he had some and could wave the concept of wealth around as his justification of life. And he’s got nothing else, never has. (And BTW a significant percentage of humans think the same way, wealthy or not)
Kelly
@scav: Who was gonna build the new houses after we kick out all the Mexican carpenters?
Suzanne
@scav: I am always wondering if/when we will reach the point that metal studs will become cost-competitive with lumber for the residential market. Metal studs also allow for more prefabrication. If you built enough quantity of the same house, it’s very feasible to build all of the interior and exterior walls in a factory, including all conduit and back boxes, piping, and ducts. Ship them to the site, snap them together, and go. Could sheath and drywall in the field, or prefab that, too.
cintibud
@Geminid: I’ve also seen that one can make Birch syrup, but you need a lot more sap. Sugar Maple sap takes 40 gallons to make 1 gallon of syrup, Silver Maple takes a bit more. I think 65-80 gallons of Birch syrup is needed make one gallon.
Last year I got about 2.5 cups of syrup, but it was very yummy. I’ve gotten a much earlier start this year.
Suzanne
If I might get building nerdy for a moment here…. there’s a lot of techniques used in commercial construction that could be employed in residential, if not for some specific hurdles. We are always looking for prefabrication opportunities in my projects, because it can save time by taking work off the critical path, and it also is better quality. (Never seems to save cost, but that’s another discussion.) Residential is all about customization and variation, and that adds cost and complexity to projects. There’s a strong cultural bias against samey-same (but also against things looking too different)….. but samey-same unlocks a lot of efficiency.
Kelly
@Suzanne: There is a church based charity that has been building many copies of the same modest house around here ever since the 2020 Beachie Fire. Goes up quickly once they get started.
Anonymous At Work
David,
Automotives and industrial capacity is where the weirdness will hit hardest, but Midwestern agriculture* is where the pain will hit hardest. And you haven’t touched on the “Rally to the Flag” effect in Canada and Mexico to “buy local” and how that will reverberate. Emotional responses are difficult to predict, especially on two major fronts. First, the capacity to endure hardship should not be underestimated. What do Canada and Mexico receive from the US that are a) infungible and b) true “necessities”? Second, the Executive Order gives some gum-flapping about escalation clauses in retaliation, coordination among affected, and other ways to ramp things up. Which gives Trump a way to get pissy when drinking Diet Coke alone at Mar-a-Lago at 2 am and doubling tariff rates. No one can predict that.
*: We grow more than we need of staple crops and export a ton, but all of that is either incredibly replaceable or incredibly micro-specialized (i.e. specialized, GMO substrains of wheat for Little Debbie cakes vs. Twinkies). What we don’t grow, i.e. imported, tends to be processed and then exported.
Ruckus
@Librettist:
Why Silicon Valley doesn’t want to grow up, idk…
The concept of real computers and the business segment thereof is not all that old and is not really based upon having been around long. It’s all about the new, updated, buy another, faster, safer bit of hardware. It’s “We update, you BUY!” And it’s worked pretty well as a business that is relatively rather young and involved in everything. Say, like what we are doing here, now. And yes the concept of computers was around a fair bit ago, but all of the methodology of today’s electronics is far, far different from 50 yrs ago. The transistor was invented in 1947 but the concept of how transistors are built today and then is a dramatic difference. How many here remember the vacuum tube testers in the grocery store? How many transistors are in your phone that you carry with you in a pocket or purse? How many of you still have a land line phone in your home? I haven’t for over 20 yrs. Much has changed in our lives over the last 3 or 4 decades.
S Cerevisiae
Fortunately on the maple syrup front I can take a drive up the north shore of Lake Superior and pick up a couple bottles of Caribou Cream syrup, made from the abundant maples on the hills and ridges above Lutsen, MN. It’s very good stuff.
David Anderson
@WaterGirl: thank you
prostratedragon
Fruit syrups are other alternatives to maple syrup (a quart of which I just bought, for the duration), and can be made at home. I do apple syrup from cider, probably the cheapest and easiest.
Central Planning
@cintibud: We have 4 trees on our property we sometimes tap. We usually end up with a gallon or so ever year we do it.
Typically, we are not at the 40:1 ratio, it’s usually better than that, somewhere around 25:1. I’ve heard that in a sugarbush, the trees are competing for resources (water/minerals) which makes the sap have less sugar. IDK if that’s really true, but my anecdotal experience seems to support it
ETA – The syrup we get is ALWAYS better tasting than any store/farm-purchased syrup (which is still delicious). Actually, that’s not 100% true – once every other year or so we forget about the boiling sap and end up with a kitchen full of smoke and the smell of burned sugar :)
Kayla Rudbek
@tobie: Jesus Haploid Fucking Christ WTFBBQ! AI and nuclear security are two things that should NEVER meet!
Bupalos
Ooff. Embarrassing. If you don’t know about an issue, don’t just guess based on some stuff you think you heard. There isn’t anything different about the sap in Vermont other than the quantity that flows. This would be like praising the quality of water that flows from the town’s fire hydrants over that gross tap water. in fact thanks to the total ignorance on this “quality” issue, other states will actually partially concentrate their sap and ship it to Vermont for processing so it can be labeled as Vermont and command a higher price from the ignorant.