If you’ve never had real maple syrup, you’ve been drowning your pancakes in an imposter concoction and I’m shunning you in my house.

The simple fact that pure maple syrup is made from nothing but the sap that comes directly from the sugar maple tree is amazing to me. You drill a small hole in a tree, catch the sap that drips out and boil it. When you’re done, it’s a delicious and sweet liquid treat.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Maple candy, maple butter, and maple sugar are all versions of the same sap that have been boiled down a bit longer to specific temperatures on your candy thermometer. The infamous sugar-on-snow is the result of heating pure maple syrup up to 235° and then drizzling it over a bowl of snow, followed by twirling the sticky taffy around a spoon to eat it.

I have to say, in my neck of the woods, and I literally mean woods, I’m pretty appreciative of the fact that winter is rounding the corner to warmer days and more sunshine.

For the past couple of decades, I’ve spent this time of year prepping for the maple sugaring season in the northeast. It’s easy to go stir crazy in the pre-spring weeks. Tapping maple trees to start the process of boiling the sap down to what is just about my favorite thing to pour over everything is just the ticket needed.

Starting out with a few buckets hanging off of trees years ago, I’ve settled on 100 taps on a sap line and a homemade reverse osmosis rig to create a pretty efficient system that allows me to make around 20–25 gallons a year of maple syrup.

That pales in comparison to producers around me that tap trees in the tens of thousands each season, but it keeps me busy and fully stocked with syrup at our house with plenty left over for friends and family.

During the boiling process, the entire yard smells like maple syrup as the water content of the sap evaporates and the sweet sugar begins to take over.

Some interesting maple syrup facts

I figured I’d share a few interesting facts about pure maple syrup since the timing is right. You may already know them, but some might be new to you…

• It takes 40 gallons of maple sap to make a single gallon of maple syrup.
• A single maple tree that’s 10 inches in diameter can produce 10 gallons of sap during the six or so weeks of the sugaring season- that equals just one quart of maple syrup.
• When temps get below freezing at night, water is naturally pulled up through the roots into the maple tree basically turning the tree into a vacuum.
• When the temperature goes above freezing, the tree releases that water in the form of sap collecting the tree’s sugars in the process. A small amount of it is captured using the sap spout that was “tapped” into the small hole that was drilled into the tree just below the tree bark layer.

You can do some simple math to understand how much work goes into the state of Vermont producing over 50 percent of the country’s maple syrup at over 2.5 million gallons in 2022!

That’s a lot of taps!

Guide to Maple Syrup Grades

Below is a great guide to the different grades of maple syrup from newengland.com with both the old grade names and the new Vermont names that were adopted in 2015 by the USDA.

OLD: “Fancy” or “Vermont Fancy”
NEW: Grade A | Golden Color and Delicate Taste

This is the lightest of the new maple syrup grades and highly recommended for drizzling over waffles, pancakes, or ice cream.

OLD: Grade A Medium Amber, Grade A Dark Amber
NEW: “Grade A | Amber Color and Rich Flavor”

This grade of maple syrup is a little more flavorful and works well when cooking and baking.

OLD: Grade A Dark Amber, Grade B
NEW: “Grade A | Dark Color and Robust Flavor”

This grade of maple syrup is even stronger in flavor and is best used for recipes that require a heavy maple flavor.

OLD: Grade C
NEW: “Grade A | Very Dark and Strong Flavor”

This grade of maple syrup is very strong, and probably best used as a substitute for molasses and for making maple candies.

Each year in Vermont, there are usually a couple of Maple Open House Weekends where you can visit just about any sugar house and experience the entire process as well as sample the sweet treats, and purchase them as well. If Vermont isn’t close, do a web search for other maple-producing states and when their open house weekends are.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t have a sugar maple in your backyard that you can tap yourself. Pure maple syrup is available all throughout New England and many producers will gladly ship it to you.