One of the Top 10 Smells in the World

For a few weeks in late winter and early spring, the maple trees are tapped for their sap when the days get above freezing but the night remain below freezing. The sap, which is 98-99% water, is boiled down in a sugar house for up to 8 or 9 hours to produce maple syrup. It takes anywhere from 20-30 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.

There is nothing in the world like the smell inside an old-fashioned sugar shack with its wood-burning evaporator and clouds of maple steam. Really, there's no better place to spend a late winter afternoon. And there's no better maple syrup than that which is made the old-fashioned way.*



*We polished off our small bottle in less than 24 hours. I even caught a certain someone drinking it straight from the bottle. And it wasn't may daughter.