Maple Sugaring VT - Vermont Sugarhouses - Vermont Sugar Houses - Vermont Sugarmakers, Sugar On Snow, Vermont Maple Syrup - VT Maple Sugaring - Vermont Sugarhouse Tours - VT Sugarhouse Tours - Vermont Sugar Makers' - Tour VT Sugarhouses - Tour Vermont Sugarhouses - VT Sugar Makers'

Vermont Maple Syrup
Sugarhouse Tours & Sugar Shacks

Sweet, sticky and delicious, maple syrup is more than that. It’s Vermont’s first sign of spring, and its signature food product! Bottles labeled Pure Vermont Maple Syrup are the real deal – all made from Vermont maple sap, and nothing else, by state law.

In early Spring Vermonters pray for the 40ish degree days and sub-freezing nights that keep sap running in the trunks of the very same sugar maple trees that dazzled us last fall with displays of brilliant red and gold leaves. Springtime conversations at the post office and general store center on how the weather is apt to affect the quality and price of this year’s syrup. Temperature fluctuation is a delicate balancing act. Sap will not run when below 40 degrees. On the other hand, at 45 degrees, the sap in the tree turns to sugar, and the trees no longer produce sap. As Mark Twain pointed out, everybody talks about the weather, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

We owe this golden gift to the Native Americans for whom maple sugar was a staple cooking ingredient. The Abenaki people, who were the first Vermonters, cut a gash in the trunk of each tree in their maple camp and fitted a wooden spout for the sap to drip into a birch bark bucket set on the ground. The buckets of sap were poured into large kettles and boiled down to sugar. Maple sugar was a prized and versatile food and seasoning used as commonly as salt is now. It was that bit of sugar that helped children’s medicine go down and Native American warriors carried rations of maple sugar mixed with dried corn flour into battle.

Over the more than 200 years that maple sap has been gathered, birch bark buckets have been replaced by metal sap buckets hung by hooks from trees to catch sap dripping from metal taps. Even more common now is plastic tubing strung from tree to tree to collect the sap and carry it to a large storage tank.

Not every store or sugarhouse selling maple syrup or any of the vast array of maple products actually makes syrup. If you want to see sap being collected, boiled down in an evaporator and turned into syrup, call before you head to a sugarhouse to make sure they can demonstrate the process. You may be invited to ride to the sugar bush in a horse-drawn sled to watch the collecting. Or, you may find that pancakes with syrup are served at breakfast time at the sugarhouse. A lot depends on weather and snow cover. Hours vary from one sugarhouse to another. Many offer samples.

Feeling ambitious? You can collect sap and boil it down for your own breakfast table. Here’s what you’re in for. You need to collect 10 gallons of sap to produce one quart of syrup. An average maple tree yields 15 to 40 gallons of sap in a season. Trees vary however. A tree may yield between five to 15 gallons, while a real gusher under ideal conditions may yield 40 to 80 gallons. The best producers are sugar maple trees also known as Rock Maple or Hard Maple.

Maple syrup is not the only maple product to enjoy. Try maple candy, maple ice cream, maple fudge, maple cotton candy, maple popcorn, maple butter and maple cream. Pour syrup over ice cream or oatmeal or French toast. Check our events calendar for events centered around maple and by all means look for the springtime-only opportunity to enjoy Sugar on Snow – a favorite get-together activity of Vermont community organizations large and small. Regional cookbooks include many recipes featuring maple syrup, which can be substituted for granulated sugar in countless dishes and baked goods. But don’t just substitute willy-nilly. Here’s the rule: Substitute ¾ to 1 cup of maple syrup for 1 cup of granulated sugar. When baking, reduce liquid by 2 to 4 tablespoons per cup of maple syrup. Add ¼ teaspoon baking soda and reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees.

One of Vermont's most popular events is the annual Vermont Maple Open House Weekend, when sugarhouses throughout the state demonstrate how sap is gathered, processed and turned into golden syrup or sugar. Although most, not all, sugarhouses are open for tours during this weekend, phone ahead!

LISTINGS ONLY
Listed Alphabetically By Name:

Baird Farm
North Chittenden, VT 802-483-2963

Birch Hill Farm
South Woodstock, VT 802-457-4806

Black Sheep Sugarhouse
Orleans, VT 802-754-6693

Bragg Farm Sugarhouse
East Montpelier, VT 802-223-5757

Branon's West View Maples
Fairfield, VT 802-527-2430

Burgess Sugarhouse
Underhill, VT 802-899-5228

Bushee Family Maple Farm
Danby, VT 802-293-5037

Cabot Hills Maple
Cabot, VT 877.486.5524

Carman Brook Maple & Dairy Farm
Swanton, VT 802-868-2347

Center Hill Maples
Barnet, VT 802-633-4491

Couture's Maple Shop
Westfield, VT 802-744-2733

Dakin Farm
Ferrisburgh, VT

Echo Hill Farm
Craftsbury, VT 802-586-2239

Evans Maple Farm
East Dummerston, VT 802-257-0262

Goodrich's Maple Farm
Cabot, VT 802-426-3388

Green Mountain Sugarhouse
Ludlow, VT 800-643-9338

Green's Sugarhouse
Poultney, VT 802-287-5745

Happy Acres Farm
South Reading, VT 800-647-9787

Harlow's Sugar House
Putney, VT 802-387-5852

Hillsboro Sugar Works
Hillsboro, VT

Isham Family Farm
Williston, VT 802-872-1525

Jed's Maple Products
Westfield, VT 802-744-2095

Kedron Sugar Makers
South Woodstock, VT 802-457-3015

Kedron Sugar Makers
South Woodstock, VT 802-457-3015

Krueger-Norton Family Sugarhouse
Shrewsbury, VT 888-486-9460

Mansion House Maple
Johnson, VT 888-545-5622

Maple In Vermont
Charlotte, VT 802-425-7900

Maple Knoll Farm
Springfield, VT 802.885.1688

Merck Forest
Rupert, VT 802-394-7836

Mom & Pop's Maple Syrup
Rochester, VT 802-767-3731

Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks
Montpelier, VT 800-242-2740

Nebraska Knoll Sugar Farm
Stowe, VT 802-253-4655

Old Carriage Sugarhouse
Charlotte, VT 802-425-4928

Ox Pasture Maples
Richford, VT 802-878-6043

Palmer Lane Maple
Jeffersonville, VT 802-644-8334

Smith Maple Crest Farm
Shrewsbury, VT 802-492-3367

Snow Hill Farm
Westford, VT 802-878-3566

Sugarbush Farm
Woodstock, VT 802-457-1757

Sweet Retreat
Northfield, VT 802-485-8525

Taft's Milk & Maple Farm
Huntington, VT 802-434-2727

The Green Mountain Maple Sugar Refining Company
Belvidere Center,, VT 802-644-2625

Trudell Family Farm
East Fairfield, VT 802-827-3213

Two Old Saps Sugarworks
Lincoln, VT 877-683-0269

Vermont Maple Outlet
Jeffersonville, VT 800-858-3121

Vermont Trade Winds Farm
Shoreham, VT 802-897-2448

Wood's Cider Mill
Springfiled, VT 802-263-5547

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