A Time for Sugar and Snow

As the spring snow turns to corn, Vermont’s sweetest season gets underway. The time-honored process of making syrup is evolving but you can still visit sugarhouses and get a taste.

By Lisa Lynn

In the long days of spring, when the snow freezes and then softens to corn by day and and the bite of winter seems to have lost its grip, something magical happens in Vermont. Tucked away in the hills and hollows, you’ll see small wooden shacks where streams of smoke rise and hover in the treetops. A sweet smell takes over the valleys.

Sugaring season came early this year with some sugar houses seeing the sap flow during the wild weather fluctuations in January. Vermonters take advantage of every opportunity there is to produce the liquid gold. The Green Mountain State produces nearly 50 percent of all the maple syrup made in the U.S. – a record 2.2 million gallons in 2020. Much of that is done by smaller mom -and-pop operations.

Around the Green Mountains, sugarers (as they are called) will be watching for the days to warm to the 40s or higher and the nights to drop below freezing. The same weather that makes snow crystallize into the corn snow that’s a skier’s favorite spring harvest, helps the sap run in the maples. The freeze/thaw cycle builds up pressure that forces the sap out of the trees via the tap holes, without harming the trees.

At Cochran’s Ski Area in Richmond, the whole Cochran clan often shows up at the sugarhouse next door to the alpine ski area to make their Slopeside Syrup. At the Trapp Family Lodge, the cross-country trails are riddled with tubing which pours to a sugar shack you can ski to. At the annual Sugar Slalom, the timehonored ritual that has sent ski racers young and old, Olympians and wannabes down the slopes at Stowe since 1939, buckets of warm sap are poured onto cold snow where they crystallize into a tasty taffy treat.

Sugaring is a time-honored tradition. Each spring many sugarhouses open their doors to visitors during Maple Open House Weekends (March 25-26 and April 1-2 in 2023) so you can watch the process. Check the website, vermontmaple. org, to find out which sugarhouses are participating.

Some host sugar on snow parties where hot syrup is poured over clean cold snow. It hardens into a taffy-like substance that people scoop up with popsicle sticks or spoons. Pickles and doughnuts are customary side dishes.

At the Robb Family Farm, a mile down a dirt road near Brattleboro, the Robbs have been sugaring for more than five generations. “My husbands’ family moved here from Guilford, Vermont in 1907,” says Helen Robb, 78. She and her husband Charlie, age 86, spend the summers and falls cutting and hauling the wood they will need to fuel the sugarhouse’s firebox, They tend to the sap lines on their 360 acres and come spring, with the help of their son and a neighbor, produce around 1,400 gallons. They sell the syrup, as well as maple candies, creams and other products at their farm store, as well as online, and give tours of the operation whenever the sugaring is in process.

“We feel it’s important to show people how Vermont maple syrup is actually made,” says Helen Robb. “A lot of people think the syrup comes right out the trees.”

“In the old days, we’d have to trudge out into the snow to collect the sap in the buckets,” she recalls. Snowshoes, skis and even jack jumpers (a single ski with a seat mounted to it) helped sugarers get through the deep snow in the woods.

Today, like most sugarers, the Robbs have mazes of plastic tubes in the woods and the excess sap flows from the trees down to gathering tanks. “With the old buckets, wind and snow would dry out the tap holes so in addition to it being easier, we have a longer season when the sap flows now, too,” she notes. “It used to be that sugaring didn’t really get underway until Town Meeting Day,”

At this stage, the sap still looks clear – much like water – and has only 2% sugar. Many operations now use reverse osmosis machines to draw down the water content. To make a gallon of syrup takes 40 gallons of sap.

The sap then goes into an evaporator — stainless steel pans set over an ‘arch’ or firebox. It’s loaded with fire wood and cranked to a high heat. There, the sap is boiled until the

Vermont Maple Peanut Butter Cookies

These cookies use no processed sugar, just pure Vermont maple syrup as the sweetener. They are also loaded with protein thanks to the chunky peanut butter.

1/2 cup of butter softened (1 stick)

3/4 cup pure Vermont maple syrup (dark or very dark to add flavor)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

1 cup peanut butter, preferably natural chunky peanut butter

1-3/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda water begins to evaporate off. Sugarers skim the froth from the surface and wait until the sap begins to turn a warm golden color and thicken. At 219 degrees, the syrup is ready.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Using mixer, combine butter and syrup until and creamy. Add vanilla extract, egg, and peanut butter and beat well.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking soda. Gradually add the dry ingredients in batches, mixing before adding more.

Roll the dough into a ball the size of a ping pong ball and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Press cookies with a fork each way to create crosshatch pattern. Bake for 15 minutes and let cool on the sheet before transferring to a rack to completely cool. Serve and enjoy! Recipe courtesy Vermont Maple Sugarers Association.

Like a fine wine, the quality, color and even the consistency of the syrup is dependent on its “terroir” to an extent and each batch gets taste-tested. It takes 40 years for a maple to produce sap for sugaring and some that have been around for 200 years. The soils, the weather, the freeze-thaw cycles all impact the syrup, as well as whether it is made at the start or toward the end of the spring flow. Earlier in the season, syrup tends to have a lighter color and taste. As the weather warms, it becomes darker and more robust.

It’s that coloration that you’ll see defined on the labels that say “Grade A: Golden, Amber, Dark, and Very Dark.”

In order to be sold at retail, the syrup has to be clear and not hazy. The darker syrup adds flavor in recipes for cookies or dressing. It is delicious drizzled over vegetables or sweet potatoes. The lighter, more delicate ones work nicely as sauces on ice cream or yogurts or mixed into drinks in place of sugar. “We always give samples when people visit and it’s fun to watch the expressions on their faces when they see how different the flavors can be,” says Robb.

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“I tend to like the Grade A Amber on my pancakes and I’ll use the darker stuff for cookies,” says Helen Robb. “But my husband likes the robust so we are a split household. But if that’s our only split between us, I guess that’s a good thing,” she says with a laugh. u

At the Trapp Family Lodge Outdoor Center, you can ski or snowshoe to the sugarhouse, left, where maple syrup is made from the thousands of maples that line the ski area trails. At Maple Open House Weekends (March 25-26 and April 1-2) you can visit sugarhouses across the state and decide which type of syrup (Golden to Very Dark) you prefer.