Sounds like a nice holiday gift. Does the candy cane stay striped or does all the color come off?

Seems like that would be good in hot chocolate too.

Oh yes, its great in hot chocolate, its like the candy cane cocoa you can buy.
The candy cane dissolved, so it left the syrup a nice light pink color.
I also just made some Pumpkin spice syrup. Its pretty good.
I just made a small bottle of it to try.

Pumpkin Spice syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
bring to a simmer and add:
1/2 TB pumpkin pie spice
simmer about 5 min.
cool & strain then add:
1/2 ts vanilla
store in glass bottle in frig.

Don't be too surprised if it looks think or a bit slimy. I made it twice and it did the same both times, it must be the spices.

another one I found was Cinnamon Syrup, this one can be used on pancakes. I haven't tried it yet.

Cinnamon syrup serves 4
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tb all-purpose flour
1/4 ts ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup water
stir together sugars, flour & cinnamon in a small saucepan.
Stir in vanilla & water.
Bring to a rolling boil, stirring often.
Continue to boil & stir until mixture thickens to a syrup consistency.
Remove from heat, cool 10 min before serving.