Glass or plastic, and why the fill decides it
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The measurement behind it
Our shelf for pourable food holds 323 bottles between 60 and 500 ml. Of those, 286 are PET and 37 are glass, and the 37 marked hot-fill capable are exactly the 37 that are glass. That is not a coincidence or a cataloging artifact; it is what the materials do at fill temperature.
If you hot pack
You are choosing from the glass, and the practical range runs from about 100 ml to 473 ml. That covers retail sizes well and it does not cover the quart, half gallon and gallon formats a maple producer uses for bulk and for farm-gate sales. We say that rather than implying a range we do not stock.
If you cold fill
A formulated syrup that is not hot packed can use the whole shelf, and PET brings real advantages: lighter freight on a dense product, no breakage, and a much wider choice of shape and neck. For a bar syrup going to restaurants, those matter more than the presentation glass buys.
What glass costs you
Weight and breakage. Syrup is dense, so a case of filled glass is heavy enough that freight is a line item rather than a rounding error, and breakage costs twice over because of what it does to everything packed near it. Both are real and neither changes the answer if you hot pack.
Light matters for a long shelf life
Syrup darkens in light over months. Clear glass shows off a product that is meant to be looked at and does nothing to protect it, which is a reason to care about where retail stock is displayed and how long it sits there.