It’s a tough job, but somebody had to do it: What does aging maple syrup in a bourbon barrel do to flavor that’s already Grade A? Quite a bit, actually.
Our publisher had emailed me a photo of a bottle of Baker Farm Bourbon Barrel Aged Pure Maple Syrup.
“Already on it,” I said.
She was reassured until she saw the text of the story, which showed that we most certainly were not on it.
Turns out, I had thought the image that she sent me was illustrating the product of Saxtons River Distillery, which produces maple liqueur.
The photo of a big flask-o-booze sitting in my email?
It’s a flask, all right — a flask of maple syrup.
Sugar farmers Dennis and Deborah Baker of East Dummerston are putting a new spin on maple syrup — at least new by our standards — by aging it in charred white oak seven-to-eight-year-old bourbon casks from Kentucky’s bluegrass region.
Packaging gimmick? Or a novel twist on a venerable Southern Vermont tradition?
Intrigued, we decided to do some investigative journalism ourselves, largely because we had let too much time elapse with the misunderstanding.
Our high-school intern did the legwork on the story — literally — by walking to the Brattleboro Food Co-op to get some local ice cream. He soon returned with Walpole Creamery’s Sweet Cream, made just across the river in Walpole, N.H. (walpolecreamery.com).
We divvied up the pint for our focus group — a publisher, an editor, a copy editor, a graphic designer, and an intern — and I solemnly drizzled the syrup onto our respective servings.
It made an impression.
“Wow, that is amazing,” one taster said.
“It’s pretty amazing,” said another.
If that’s not consensus, I don’t know what is.
Baker’s product was unmistakably maple syrup, but the oak barrels brought out (or, more likely, added) some distinct and interesting complexities to it.
“It definitely tastes kind of alcoholic, slightly fermented,” said our intern dreamily, wise beyond his years, or at least beyond his legal capacity to have any frame of reference for the comparison.
The Bakers’ product was unmistakably maple syrup, but the oak barrels brought out (or, more likely, added) some distinct and interesting complexities to it. We detected a complex flavor profile: smoke, vanilla, honey, caramel. I tasted pistachio.
“I can’t quite place that flavor,” I said. The ice cream long gone, I poured another sample straight onto my spoon.
Several times.
All, of course, in the name of research.
* * *
Just in the nick of time, Dennis Baker returned from vacation and told one of our reporters a little bit about it.
The bourbon barrel-aged inspiration was not precisely original with their son, John, 33, of Burlington, according to his father. Several other producers “up north” have been making the bourbon-enhanced syrup for a few years, he said.
But John made it happen here, ordering the 50-gallon bourbon barrel and arranging for about a five-month steep of the grade-A amber syrup.
“He used a dark maple syrup,” Baker explained, letting it stand for the steep. “Then we bottled it up.”
The Baker Farm, which has been brewing up maple syrup (about a thousand taps) for 30 years, is hard to find online, though the Bakers do have an email address (dbaker@svcable.net).
But it turns out that they sell it right at the family business — Baker’s Office Products in the Hannaford shopping center on Putney Road in Brattleboro — among the staples, Post-its, and paper clips.
You just have to know, and now you do.
