I hope, one day, to once again live in an area where maple trees can thrive. A buddy of mine lives in a subdivision a few miles from me (North Richland Hills, TX), and the builders thought "Hey, let's plant maple trees so people can have pretty leaves in the fall". Well, maple trees and Texas heat don't get along to well. The tree lasted 10 years.We have a neighbour (middle of a 600k city) that was tapping maple trees in the neighbourhood to add to syrup production. Managed to trade him some of my garlic and jars of tomato sauce for a small bottle. The last few years the trees have been decimated by wind storms so my local street source is gone. He was adding his liquid to that sourced on a family farm, 40:1 reduction to get syrup.
Also keeps your eyes open for Birch Syrup. I believe it's an 80:1 reduction so even more expensive then maple.
dave