Maple Soda

I was in Vermont a couple weeks ago, and I made plans to meet some friends at the Blueberry Haus, an ice cream stand in Guilford.  While frozen treats were every bit as delicious as you’d expect from small-town Vermont, I was more intrigued by a bottle of Maple Soda.  After all, we are no strangers to delicious ice cream in Vermont, home of Ben & Jerry’s.  But things unnecessarily flavored with maple, welll…okay, that’s not particularly novel either.  But having never encounetred a maple beverage before, and having served my time as a slave to Big Maple, I couldn’t help my curiosity.

Had I read the label, I might have been taken a moment to reflect on my impulse.  There were two ingredients in the drink: seltzer water and maple.  While I was reeled in by the promise of maple, I expected to find it used in a bit more moderation, perhaps in a soda sweetened with maple instead of high fructose corn syrup.  But instead of tasting something akin to Maple Coke, I was subjected to a bottle of frothy, watered-down, reduced-sugar maple syrup.  Which, I might add, is considerably less appealing than it sounds.  It was as though someone said, “I really enjoy seltzer water, but wouldn’t it be better if it was infused with the dark, bitter aroma of a tire fire?”

I hope I don’t run into Molasses Soda next time I’m in the farmlands.  Because deep down I know that my sense of adventure greatly outweighs my common sense.

-TC