Maple Syrup!

There's an old joke about Vermont having five seasons instead of four:  spring, summer, fall, winter, and mud season.  While it's true that mud season can be pretty epic, everyone here at Whitman's will tell you that we actually have six seasons.  The sixth usually starts a little before mud season, right about this time of year, when the sun's providing more warmth and daytime temperatures start nosing above the freezing mark but still drop below freezing at night.  Any guesses?  Here are a few hints: Maple trees. Buckets.  Boiling.  That's right:  Vermont's sixth season is sugaring season.

Vermont is justly famous for the quality and quantity of its syrup (in 2013, 2 of every 5 gallons of maple syrup produced in the US came from VT), and it's not just the commercial producers with big sugar woods and miles of lines who are sugaring.  Lots of people have smaller operations - some produce enough so they can sell a few gallons, while others just tap a couple trees in the front yard and boil enough for their own needs.  So if you're interested in trying your hand at producing some syrup, we have what you need here at Whitman's.

The basic equipment for sugaring:

• 7/16" drill bit. 
• Spouts with hooks.
• Sap buckets with covers. (Yes, you can use other containers, but few things are as quintessentially Vermont as an old-fashioned sap bucket hanging on a maple tree).  We have new buckets, and some previously-used buckets in excellent condition.
• Large (at least 2 gallon capacity) pot.  We have canning pots that work beautifully.
• Syrup grading kit (not strictly necessary if you're only sugaring for home consumption, though it's nice to know what grade you produce).
• A good "how to" book.  We have several in stock, but for concise instructions delivered with dry Yankee humor, it's hard to beat Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletin "Making Maple Syrup the Old-Fashioned Way" by Noel Perrin.

First, you'll need to tap your trees.  You're going to drill about two feet off the ground and about two and a half inches into the tree, and on a slight upward angle so that gravity will help the sap run.  You can tap any sugar maple with a trunk at least 10" in diameter, and add another spout for each additional 6"-8" of diameter (maximum of 4 taps per tree).  

When you have your holes drilled, install the spouts by tapping them gently but firmly into the holes.  You don't want to drive them in too far, as they'll be very difficult to remove, but you want them in firmly enough to support your sap bucket.  Hang your buckets and check them in about 8 hrs.  When you have a couple gallons, you can start boiling!

Now, a word of wisdom here.  It takes a LOT of boiling, and much more sap than most people realize.  To produce a single cup of maple syrup, you'll need more than two gallons of sap; you have to reduce the sap to about 1/35th of its original volume.  So be sure you have at least a couple of gallons of sap to boil.

We won't go into the entire process here - that'll be covered in the "how to" book you're going to get - but after sufficient boiling and careful monitoring, you'll be rewarded with your very own batch of homemade maple syrup.  You might decide to try your hand again or even increase the number of taps and get a more professional set-up (again,you'll find information and resources on that in the "how to" book).  But even if you decide it isn't an experience you care to repeat, you'll have bragging rights and a very interesting story to tell!