diff --git a/hints/darwin.sh b/hints/darwin.sh
index afadf53..80b7533 100644
--- a/hints/darwin.sh
+++ b/hints/darwin.sh
@@ -329,7 +329,7 @@ EOM
     # sw_vers output                 what we want
     # "ProductVersion:    10.10.5"   "10.10"
     # "ProductVersion:    10.11"     "10.11"
-        prodvers=`sw_vers|awk '/^ProductVersion:/{print $2}'|awk -F. '{print $1"."$2}'`
+        prodvers="${MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET:-10.12}"
     case "$prodvers" in
     10.*)
       add_macosx_version_min ccflags $prodvers