Thursday, June 4, 2015

The latest in the ongoing saga of what to put in my coffee

The giant jug of Sysco honey is now gone, which means I have an excuse to buy a normal-sized bottle from a local apiary. It also means that as part of the cupboard-clearing-out exercise I have moved to the next bottle of liquid sweetener in the cabinet: a 22-ounce jar of something called "Grand-Paw's Moonshine Syrup" from Helm Farms, the same source as the pure cane syrup I used a few months back.

Grand-Paw's Moonshine Syrup consists, or so the label tells me, of a mix of cane syrup and corn syrup. It is a much lighter color than the cane syrup and is also much smoother. There is, in essence, no discernible taste. It is sweet, in a very mellow, unobtrusive way, but other than that? It has less flavor than Karo syrup, if one can imagine such a thing. I have absolutely no idea what the calorie count might be on this stuff, although one would assume that it's similar to the calorie count for honey, i.e., higher than the calorie count for granulated sugar but not by much. Not that I care much; if I worried about calories, I wouldn't be using sweetener at all.

The one thing I have noticed that makes this syrup a tad different from the last two sweeteners I used as part of the cupboard-emptying exercise is it's really, really thick. I have no idea if that's a function of age (it has been in the cabinet for several years now) or if it's the way Helm Farms refined it. It's just obvious that compared to the honey and the cane syrup, it's got a high viscosity. It makes molasses look fast.

And what else might I have learned from using this stuff? If we're in Texas and I see it on a farm stand or in a local market, ignore it. We do need to keep some syrup around as a just-in-case for my diabetic cat (if she starts acting more lethargic than usual or has a seizure following an insulin injection it'll supposedly be a sign that her blood sugar has dropped too low and I'll have to dump some syrup down her throat), but ordinary Karo will do just fine for that -- and it too has a shelf life of "forever."

The Moonshine Syrup is, incidentally, lighter in color than the photo renders it. 

2 comments:

  1. why not just a shot of whiskey of your choice?
    the Ol'Buzzard

    ReplyDelete
  2. Whiskey? At 5 a.m.? I do like Irish coffee but not first thing in the morning.

    ReplyDelete

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