Stocking up on Maple Syrup in Berlin

Once a year, the Aldi grocery store chain has maple syrup, only as long as supplies last. Now, it's not as if you can't buy maple syrup anywhere else in Germany, but it tends to be expensive and Aldi is cheap, so this sale is kind of a big deal among North American expats.



I first heard of it a couple years ago from this Berlin expat academics' listserv I'm on. Since then I've, um, marked a note in my calendar for July each year, and apparently now I've become that person who checks by Aldi in early July until I find out what week the sale will be, and then writes the listserv about it.

Which I feel a little silly about (I mean, it's just maple syrup), except that this year I got four or five responses back, from people who wanted to express their gratitude, the sale had slipped their minds this year and they would have missed it if I hadn't written, etc. A friend who lives most of the time in Spain but visits Berlin often even asked if I'd pick up a bottle for her.

Yeah, we're a strange bunch over here.

Even stranger to me, though, is that each time this comes around and I go to Aldi to stock up, I get some other shopper peering in fascination at my purchases, wondering what on earth I'm buying. This time, a guy asked me, "Do you dilute it with water?" And when I said, "Uh, no," he asked, "Oh, so it's not something to drink?"

I do realize that maple syrup is a North American thing, but the Germans I know are generally a cosmopolitan bunch, who've at least heard of it. So it always surprises me to come across someone who hasn't!