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Local Maple Syrup
buy it right on our farm!
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Local Maple Syrup made right here in Lanark, Ontario.
Our current inventory of Maple Syrup was bottle this spring.
$20.00 (1L glass bottles)
$18.00 (1L plastic bottles)
$15.00 (500ml hand painted sugar shack bottle)
Come in to our store (right on our farm) to pickup your local Maple Syrup!
History...
Native Americans
Aboriginal peoples living in the northeastern part of North America were the
first groups known to have produced maple syrup and maple sugar. According to
aboriginal oral traditions, as well as archaeological evidence, maple tree sap
was being processed into syrup long before Europeans arrived in the region.
There are no authenticated accounts of how maple syrup production and
consumption began, but various legends exist; one of the most popular involves
maple sap being used in place of water to cook venison served to a chief. Other
stories credit the development of maple syrup production to Nanabozho, Glooskap,
or the squirrel. Aboriginal tribes developed rituals around sugar-making,
celebrating the Sugar Moon (the first full moon of spring) with a Maple Dance.
Many aboriginal dishes replaced the salt traditional in European cuisine with
maple sugar or syrup. The Algonquians recognized maple sap as a source of energy
and nutrition. At the beginning of the spring thaw, they used stone tools to
make V-shaped incisions in tree trunks; they then inserted reeds or concave
pieces of bark to run the sap into buckets, which were often made from birch
bark. The maple sap was concentrated either by dropping hot cooking stones into
the buckets or by leaving them exposed to the cold temperatures overnight and
disposing of the layer of ice that formed on top. Production of maple syrup is
one of only a few agricultural processes in North America that is not a European
colonial import.
Europeans
In the early stages of European colonization in northeastern North America,
native peoples showed the arriving colonists how to tap the trunks of certain
types of maples during the spring thaw to harvest the sap. André Thevet, the
"Royal Cosmographer of France", wrote about Jacques Cartier drinking maple sap
during his Canadian voyages. By 1680, European settlers and fur traders were
involved in harvesting maple products. However, rather than making incisions in
the bark as the natives did, the Europeans opted to use the less destructive
method of drilling tapholes in the trunks with augers. During the 17th and 18th
centuries, processed maple sap was used primarily as a source of concentrated
sugar, in both liquid and crystallized-solid form, as cane sugar had to be
imported from the West Indies. Maple sugaring parties typically began to operate
at the start of the spring thaw in regions of woodland with sufficiently large
numbers of maples. Syrup makers first bored holes in the trunks, usually more
than one hole per large tree; they then inserted wooden spouts into the holes
and hung a wooden bucket from the protruding end of each spout to collect the
sap. The buckets were commonly made by cutting cylindrical segments from a large
tree trunk and then hollowing out each segment's core from one end of the
cylinder, creating a seamless, watertight container. Sap filled the buckets, and
was then either transferred to larger holding vessels (barrels, large pots, or
hollowed-out wooden logs), often mounted on sledges or wagons pulled by draft
animals, or carried in buckets or other convenient containers. The
sap-collection buckets were returned to the spouts mounted on the trees, and the
process was repeated for as long as the flow of sap remained "sweet". The
specific weather conditions of the thaw period were, and still are, critical in
determining the length of the sugaring season. As the weather continues to warm,
a maple tree's normal early spring biological process eventually alters the
taste of the sap, making it unpalatable, perhaps due to an increase in amino
acids. The boiling process was time-consuming. The harvested sap was transported
back to the party's base camp, where it was then poured into large vessels
(usually made from metal) and boiled to achieve the desired consistency. The sap
was usually transported using large barrels pulled by horses or oxen to a
central collection point, where it was processed either over a fire built out in
the open or inside a shelter built for that purpose (the "sugar shack").
Modern Era
Around the time of the American Civil War, syrup makers started using large,
flat sheet metal pans as they were more efficient for boiling than heavy,
rounded iron kettles, because of a greater surface area for evaporation. Around
this time, cane sugar replaced maple sugar as the dominant sweetener in the US;
as a result, producers focused marketing efforts on maple syrup. The first
evaporator, used to heat and concentrate sap, was patented in 1858. In 1872, an
evaporator was developed that featured two pans and a metal arch or firebox,
which greatly decreased boiling time. Around 1900, producers bent the tin that
formed the bottom of a pan into a series of flues, which increased the heated
surface area of the pan and again decreased boiling time. Some producers also
added a finishing pan, a separate batch evaporator, as a final stage in the
evaporation process. Two taps in a maple tree, using plastic tubing for sap
collection Buckets began to be replaced with plastic bags, which allowed people
to see at a distance how much sap had been collected. Syrup producers also began
using tractors to haul vats of sap from the trees being tapped (the sugarbush)
to the evaporator. Some producers adopted motor-powered tappers and metal tubing
systems to convey sap from the tree to a central collection container, but these
techniques were not widely used. Heating methods also diversified: modern
producers use wood, oil, natural gas, propane, or steam to evaporate sap. Modern
filtration methods were perfected to prevent contamination of the syrup. A large
number of technological changes took place during the 1970s. Plastic tubing
systems that had been experimental since the early part of the century were
perfected, and the sap came directly from the tree to the evaporator house.
Vacuum pumps were added to the tubing systems, and preheaters were developed to
recycle heat lost in the steam. Producers developed reverse-osmosis machines to
take a portion of water out of the sap before it was boiled, increasing
processing efficiency. Improvements in tubing and vacuum pumps, new filtering
techniques, "supercharged" preheaters, and better storage containers have since
been developed.
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