DIY Bourbon 'Barrel' Aged Maple Syrup

[Kerry Beal]

I've been playing with microwave aging of corn/wheat/malted barley white dog to make ersatz bourbon - leaving me with all sort of nice bourbon soaked Jack Daniels chips.  

 

 

I happened to notice some of Max Burt's excellent Manitoulin maple syrup I had tucked away - and decided that I could make my own imitation of BLiS Bourbon Barrel aged maple syrup.  Took a couple of Tea-Sac tea bags, filled them with chips, immersed them in the bottles and nuked 3 times over a 3 day period.  Heated to about 60º C, capped while still hot.  

 

 

If you remove the tea bags while hot they drain quite nicely.  

 

Ongoing experimentation involves the cheap version - a syrup made with half as much water by weight as sugar, enough natural maple flavoring to make it taste right - then aged with a couple of bags of bourbon chips.  

 

Next experiment - Bourbon 'Barrel' aged fish sauce?

 

 

[Tri2Cook]

Cool experiment. Can't wait to hear how it turns out. How long do you plan to age it?

[Kerry Beal]

It actually only get's the 3 days of heating and cooling.  So the batch that I made with 'real' maple syrup is done and yummy - and the 'fake maple' will be done today.  Tasted it last night and it tastes pretty fabulous too.  

[Tri2Cook]

Ah, got it. The 3 heating sessions are the aging process. Interesting...