Sap’s rising: Maple syrup hobbyists head for woods to boil down syrup and make sweet money

Sap’s rising: Sweet money for maple syrup hobby

IRA, Vt. — Eric May wasn’t too keen on the taste of real maple syrup when he first moved to Vermont but he tapped some trees anyway, borrowing buckets from neighboring farmers. After boiling the sap for 18 hours in a pot over an outside fire, he produced his first quart. Then he was hooked.

“I thought it was the cat’s meow,” said May, 45. “Because it boiled. You take this liquid coming out of a tree that you think is just water but you can taste the sweetness in it, you just boil it down then all of a sudden after hours, you’ve got maple syrup.

Since that first year, his backyard sugaring operation has grown from 20 taps 13 years ago, to 50 the next, then 300 and 800 this year on the hillside behind his house. He’s added vacuum-packed lines that carry the sap from the trees to a holding tank and he’s built a wooden sugar shack where he and his teenage son spend long late winter nights boiling. He’s invested several thousand dollars, sells the syrup by word of mouth and hopes to make a little profit this year.

May is one of a growing number of hobby sugarmakers scattered around the hills and muddy dirt roads of northern New England, where clouds of steam rise from sugar shacks each February and March.

“We’ve just seen a tremendous increase in people with a few maples that want to produce,” said Henry Marckres, a maple specialist with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, who estimates the state has 2,000 small maple producers.

The number of backyard producers has been growing every year for the last decade but in the last two years — since a shortage of syrup caused a spike in prices — more and more are getting into it for the first time, he said.

“It appears there’s no lack of market for the syrup and the bulk price is high so you don’t even have to worry about marketing it yourself. … there is some money there and of course with the economy what it is, people, if they have a resource for it, they are going to use it to try to make some money,” he said.

The average retail price is about $48 a gallon, Marckres said.

Syrup produced for sale must be graded for color, clarity, density and flavor — and be labeled. State inspectors can visit any sugar shack that sells syrup to test the product.

“What I”ve seen is a lot of the small producers really take a lot of pride in what they’re producing and they want their syrup to be the absolute best that they can make,” Marckres said.

Many small producers just want to recoup their expenses. Others, having invested little, are happy to give it away.

In his first foray into syrup-making last year, Gary Keough of Epsom, N.H., tapped six trees and boiled the sap into syrup on his gas grill. He’s planning to use 20 taps this season in the maples he has on his property.

Keough, who is director of the New England field office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service in Concord, N.H., got about a half-gallon of syrup last year and is hoping for three times that much this year.

He’ll use most of it at home — he loves it on Belgian waffles — and perhaps give some to friends. He figures he’s invested about $150 in equipment, which should last for years to come.

The surge in sugarmaking is keeping equipment dealers busy.

“The last two years is no doubt the largest expansion I’ve ever seen,” said Gary Gaudette, president of Leader Evaporator Co. in Swanton, which sells sugaring equipment.

Last year sales jumped 30 percent, he said. Already this year sales are 30 percent higher than they were at the same time last year, before sugaring season has even taken off, he said.

Aside from making money or at least recouping expenses, sugaring gives people a relatively inexpensive family activity in the poor economy.

“It is something that can be done with a family and is something they can do right on their property,” said Joe Suga of Suga Country Products in Vassalboro, Maine, who produces syrup and sells syrup-making equipment. “It’s educational, family oriented and it’s traditional.”

It’s also social. Sugarmakers share tips and equipment and welcome visitors into their steamy, sweet-smelling sugar shacks during the short season to watch the boiling and have a taste of warm syrup in a cup or on snow.

They spent hours at it, often cutting and splitting the wood to fire the evaporator and then collecting the sap, and boiling it.

“They get in many many hours per gallon of syrup. When they get that final product, it is something special.”

Associated Press writer Clarke Canfield in Portland, Me., contributed to this report.

On the Net: www.sugacountryproducts.com

On the Net: www.leaderevaporator.com