Maple Sugaring

Fact:  I grew up in VT, one of the top producers of maple syrup, and never once visited a sugar shack, or was taught the process of sap to syrup.  But that is officially NOT the case anymore.

Some friends of mine have their own sugaring business and were gracious enough to give me the 411 on the syrup making process.  I was even allowed to contribute by taking care of the finishing touches… putting labels on the jugs!

The actual process is pretty simple.  Tap the trees; collect the sap, filter, boil, evaporate and viola!  But Tammy and John are no small timers.  They mass produce the stuff so the system they have set up, and the machinery they use is pretty technical and very impressive. (FYI it takes about 40 gallons of sap to yield one gallon of maple sugar.  No wonder it’s so darn expensive).

Sap inside trees can loosely be compared to blood types inside humans.  Not every tree produces the same type of sap.  The quality and the grade of the sap depend on temperature fluxes… warm days and freezing nights are best for sap flow.  And it’s not until you pour your first batch on a particular day that you’ll know what Grade of syrup you are making.  On that particular day we were making Grade A Dark Amber… a little denser and with a stronger maple flavor.

Lucky for me I don’t particularly care for maple syrup, which means more money in my wallet and less excess around the middle.  But I can understand why people are drawn to it.  In fact, while we were there, we had 3 different sets of visitors come in for a tour and got their free samples fresh from the tap.    Two of the groups were just walk-ins off the street, and one group called ahead to forewarn they were coming.  It was a group of about 30 people; a family from Mass and CT, who come and visit every year and scoop up about $800 worth of syrup.  They were great fun and even stuck around to party w/us a little.

So there you have it, the very basics of “sugaring”.  If any of my non-New England friends are in the market for some real VT maple syrup, I can definitely point you in the right direction.  And if you happen to get a bottle w/a crooked label… it was probably my doing, sorry.