Syrup Showdown

A couple of days ago, Robbo, Bunny and I attended a Super Bowl Sunday Brunch. It turned out that there were 4 types of syrup at this waffle-eating event, and we decided to settle the age-old question, what's the best syrup?

The Syrups:
a) IGA (generic artificial syrup)
b) Vermont I (natural Vermont syrup from a store)
c) Roth's (natural Wisconsin syrup)
d) Vermont II (natural Vermont syrup from my parents' neighbor's trees)


We had 8 people testing the syrup (n = 8, single-blind) and each person ranked the syrups from 1 to 4 (1 = lowest, 4 = highest). At the end, the scores were tallied. Here are the results:

1. (d) Vermont II (28 points)
2. (c) Roth's (21 points)
3. (b) Vermont I (20 points)
4. (a) IGA (11 points)

My observations:

Even the most skeptical agreed that there were definitely differences between the syrups. The fake syrup was the clear loser, only receiving 1's and 2's (even from Robbo who supposedly prefers the fake stuff). The Vermont II was the clear winner, receiving only 3's and 4's. The Roth's and Vermont I were so closely matched that I'll call it a tie. I think more investigation is warrented in the Vermont vs. Wisconsin battle.

For those folks looking for the raw scores:

A	B	C	D
2	1	4	3
2	1	4	3
1	3	2	4
1	2	3	4
1	3	2	4
1	4	2	3
1	2	3	4
2	4	1	3
11	20	21	28

This was epic.