SHAGBARK HICKORY SYRUP
Native
Americans were the first to drink shagbark hickory tea,
the broth made from boiling hickory bark. They found that
this could help relieve symptoms of arthritis and we now
know that hickory bark is one of the highest plant sources
of magnesium. Magnesium plays a huge role in the human body
including neurotransmission, muscle contraction, combating
muscle pain and fatigue and is important for healthy heart
function. Magnesium is also known to be an antidote to stress
and one of the most powerful relaxation minerals available,
better than melatonin.
Shagbark
tea was originally sweetened with wild honey and this was
probably the precursor to hickory syrup but it was when
European sugar beets were brought to North America by American
colonists, Native Americans began sweetening their hickory
tea with sugar beet syrup and this is what created the Shagbark
Hickory Syrup we know today.
Of
the current world production of more than 130 million metric
tons of sugar, roughly about 20% comes from sugar beet and
80% from sugar cane.
Sugar
beets contain 10-16% sucrose. Honey is made up of 38.2%
of fructose, 31% glucose and only 1.3 % sucrose. Maple Syrup
is basically 99.9 % sucrose. White table sugar, turbinado
and brown sugar are also 99.9 % sucrose.
We
use cane sugar to sweeten our shagbark tea and a maple syrup
hydrometer to ensure consistency in sugar density. Our shagbark
hickory syrup is the same density as maple syrup, but the
similarity ends there!
Hickory
syrup is not made by tapping the tree, rather it is made
by harvesting the shags of bark that the tree naturally
drops and boiling them with sugar. It makes some of the
best syrup I have ever tasted and truly rivals the flavor
of maple syrup. It has a sweet, almost smoky flavor that
is distinctive. The Shagbark tree drops it bark all year
around, but since the end product involves a lot of boiling,
this product is produced in abundance in the cooler months
but is available all year long.
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