Walnut syrup: like a pair of Ontario is drawing on a sweet sweetness
Essex County, Ontario, Leslie and Bob Meloche couple have perfected a unique delicacy for their Bed and Breakfast guests in the last five years: black walnut syrup.
Afternoon drive6:04Even black walnut trees can syrup
Leslie and Bob Meloche manage the Walnut Grove B&B in the County of Essex and have created a sweet specialty: walnut syrup. It is like maple, but much more high work intensity. Josiah Sinanan of Afterherping Drive makes them a visit to find out more and take a taste test.
“As for taste, it is as sweet as maple syrup, but has a different aromatic profile,” said Bob.
Sitting in the sugar shack on the back of Walnut Grove’s Bed and Breakfast, near Harrow, the evaporator is boiling, developing what could be the last lot of the lymph of the walnut tree for the season. The couple also touches their maples, of which they have less on the property.
“That’s why we moved here specifically by Windsor, to run this (Bed and Breakfast). And we were lucky to have this bush of five acres (in the back),” Bob said.
As with the maples, the walnut lymph must be exploited in specific conditions: when the temperature is higher than zero degrees during the day and below zero at night.
But despite similar processes, the creation of walnut syrup requires a little more fat to the elbow.
“We touch about seven times the number of walnut trees to collect the same amount of lymph that the maples are disappearing. It takes about 90 liters of walnut sap to obtain a liter of syrup.”
Only 40 liters of sap are needed to make the same return with the maple, which according to Bob has a more distinct taste that people are familiar. It describes the walnut syrup as more “similar to a sponge”.
For his wife Leslie, the extra work is worth it.
“We started with the maples and then the following year decided:” Hey, we have walnuts, we make the walnut syrup. “After all, we are the walnut grove.”
The couple bottles their maple syrup for $ 15, while the same amount of walnut syrup has a price of $ 45. But rather than relying on the sales of bottles, they use delicacy as a special offer for their guests.
“It is much more expensive and probably does not even reflect the amount of work behind it,” said Leslie. “Instead, we tend to incorporate walnut syrup into our desserts in some way. Drizzed on ice cream, it is very nice.”
The buckets still hang from maple trees and walnuts in the same way while the season winds through the meloches. Walnut trees have a significantly thicker cortex, which the couple say must be challenged first to ensure a good tap.
“We apologize while we are doing it,” said Leslie.
“It is a fun thing to do in a certain sense, but when I take off a bucket from a tree, (also) I thank him, because they are giving us a little bit of their blood for our fun.”
It is part of the learning process that the couple adapts to year after year – and while it might seem romantic, it is hard work.
“I suppose people would think that, leaving in the woods, (but) we are here to work. There is nothing romantic in this,” said Leslie.
“We walk from hand in hand through the woods? Absolutely. But not while we are dried Schlepping.”
