Perusing vegan cookbooks recently, I've noticed a tendency to recommend maple syrup as a sweetener. Yes, it's sucrose, but perhaps tree juice is ahead of refined cane sugar and the demon corn. And it also has flavor.
I cannot abide most artificial flavorings, and although some faux maple comes from the authentic spice fenugreek, there's nothing like the real thing. Coombs Family Farms' maple syrup is very real.