The Maple Syrup Refinery

Whilst en route to Australia, the Maple Syrup contained in the ex-Hearst oak barrel, slung under the fuselage of the “Granny” plane, became habitually affected by exposure to the upper atmosphere and subtropical conditions. This resulted in a subsequent loss of quality and required further refinement ... thus the building of the Maple Syrup Refining Plant.

The Pancake Parlour was fortunate to obtain, as part of the “War Reparations of 1919 Treaty of Versailles”, page 112, an ex-Australian Light Horse Water Filtration Plant, last used in Beersheba in 1917.

The Filtration Plant, colourfully enough, had been captured by the German Army and was prized for its efficiency and “bush simplicity”.

The Maple Syrup, direct from the barrel, passes through a series of complex filters and purifiers, each one more effective than the last, but invariably using the same technology that saw George Stephenson apply steam so creatively, until the precious golden-brown liquid, as pure as it was when it was gathered from the glorious maple trees of Vermont, arrives to provide the perfect accompaniment to the Splendid Pancake.

Or so legend has it … 

Virtually everything on this device at some time had another use: the old brass bath heater from the 1940's mysteriously matching a copper boiler exactly (but found in two separate scrap yards!); a rejected acrylic dome over a copper pan in which mock maple syrup quietly steams away; a ship’s propeller stirring all the time, under which sits an upturned copper tray from an old hot-water service: the two are separated by a marvellous large copper coil. Another dented old copper full of coke completes the end. In the middle, to the right, the highly coloured contraption on legs, trimmed with the obligatory brass gauges, the Maple Syrup Refining Plant is a genuine piece of Australian history.

Apparently it is a water-purifying device once used by the Australian Army in the Western Desert and taken there in WW2. Peter Von teamed it with some ancient plumbing ‘S’ bends, parts of a jet engine and some flexible copper coil, all in the name of art. With a crooked acrylic dome steaming attractively, you’d almost just about think it was real, and some people actually do (or so we are told).

The Maple Syrup Refining Plant now resides at Highpoint.