The 2010 Sugaring Season — Fast and Furious and Fancy!

This year’s sugaring season has finally ended, but what a wild ride it was! The sap began to flow in the maple trees during the last week of February, and sugarmakers (maple syrup producers) all over Vermont were caught offguard. Here in northern Vermont, there have been many years when we haven’t gotten those above freezing temperatures until the middle of March or later. This was as early a beginning to the sugaring season as anyone can remember. Along with all our sugarmaking neighbors, we scrambled to finish tapping our trees, clean our tanks, and get ready to boil some sap!

The early warm weather was no tease. Perfectly classic sugaring weather set in and continued for the next three weeks without a break. Freezing cold nights followed by daytime temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s create ideal conditions for maple sap production, and the trees did not disappoint us. They yielded thousands and thousands of gallons of beautiful, clear sap, day after day after day. This was a very good year for Fancy Grade maple syrup. We produced plenty of it, and it is remarkably light in color and delicate in flavor. But for those fans of darker syrup, we made lots of Grade B as well.

It was a very good sugaring year overall. Now spring has arrived in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, and at Deep Mountain Maple we are tired but happy.