My grandfather, way back in the day, made the best maple syrup and sugar in New Brunswick, IMHO.
I spent a lot of time at the sugar camp when I was a boy, but the farm and the camp were sold in 1962, and handed over to friends of the family, so I still spent time there. When I was a kid, the sap was collected with buckets on a yoke, carried by men on snowshoes, who then deposited it in a large vat on a sleigh, pulled by a horse. After the farm had passed to others, I actually gathered sap with a yoke, and whipped the sap/syrup to make sugar, which is harder than it sounds. Done in a rectangular vat about 3 foot by two foot, with paddles, a man on either side........it got difficult as it thickened up. Just like 200 years ago. In fact, there is a record of our family's sugar/syrup floated by raft down the Pollet River from Elgin to Petticodiac for sale.....in 1821.
I haven't been to a sugaring off in well over 40 years. I used to eat candy from the snow, washed down with sap straight out of a bucket hanging from a nearby tree.
I daily have a slug of syrup straight from the jug, chased by a mouthful of milk. Ambrosia. Nectar of the gods.
Petros, you're nuts. Medium is the one true syrup.