Maple season delivers its bounty

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CONWAY — After being put on pause in 2020 due to the pandemic and then held as a hybrid event last year, New Hampshire Maple Weekend came back at participating sugarhouses March 19-20.

And like last year, the entire month of March has been declared New Hampshire Maple Month.

Our sister state of Maine, meanwhile, will hold its Maine Maple Sunday Weekend, March 26-27.

During both events, maple products are offered for sale, with samples available at some of the open houses.

It’s been called the “sweetest time of the year,” and for good reason — it’s pure natural sugar and as any chef will tell you, it tastes great on just about anything, from salmon to maple bacon brussels sprouts to of course pancakes and waffles.

Conway’s Sweet Maple Cafe, for example, features maple pecan danishes, maple walnut scones, and sides of maple syrup for all of its dishes, including Monte Christo sandwiches and French toast.

Just up the road, Leavitt’s Country Bakery — this year under new ownership — featured as its doughnut of the day, a maple bacon one.

“We use maple in our selections throughout the year and a special doughnut of the day every Saturday,” said Kristina Alaina Garrison, who with her brother-in-law, Nick Garrison, is carrying on Leavitt’s tradition of delicious treats made famous by former owners Beth and Ray Leavitt.

Marc and Kathy Ianuzzi’s renowned White Mountain Cupcakery at Settlers Green featured maple bacon cupcakes. And, if you’re up for a road trip or are headed over to Cannon Mountain for some spring skiing, Kathie and Steve Cote’s Polly’s Pancake House in Franconia is world-famous for its maple treats, including — of course — pancakes of all varieties smothered in syrup.

Those aged 21 and older will want to stop by the Cathedral Ledge Distillery in North Conway to try their vodka-based organic maple liqueur, created with their own distilled vodka combined with organically made syrup from Meridan Hill Maple Farm in Littleton. The liqueur is on sale at the distillery along with other liquor products.

“It’s our most popular spirit,” said co-owner Tracy Burk of the maple liqueur, which along with their other spirits are available year-round.

“It’s a little sweeter and a little lower in alcohol content so it is a nice sipper of a treat,” added Tracy, who with husband Christopher opened the distillery in the attractive wooden post-and-beam structure in December 2020.

Similarly, Zeb’s General Store in North Conway Village — always celebrating New England’s heritage — features maple syrup candy and products, including Runamok Maple’s rum- and bourbon-infused, barrel-aged syrup.

Also offering maple syrup is the Rugged Mill of North Conway Village.

“It’s nice to be able to offer it. We sell maple syrup from my high school friend Tim Robinson of Turkey Street Maples in Tamworth,” noted proprietor Matt Fusco.

It’s also nice that it’s a healthy treat. Not only does maple syrup go with just about anything, whether ice cream, waffles or rum or vodka, but did you know maple syrup is full of antioxidants?

And then there’s the tradition of it, connecting us northern New Englanders to our ancestors and beyond. Nostalgia — it’s part of what makes visiting a sap house seem like stepping into a real-life Bing Crosby movie out of the 1940s.

“I just love the idea that I am doing something that I have done since I was a boy when my grandfather (Harold Hatch of Intervale) would boil the sap right in the kitchen. My dad taught me a lot about it as well,” said Rob Hatch, 42, of Mooney Hill Maples, located at 493 High St. just off Route 41 in Silver Lake of Madison.

He said his wife Ciaran shares his love for their hobby of maple sugaring. Ciaran, who was a nurse, recently fulfilled her lifelong dream of opening her own bakery, Sugar N Spice Bakery in nearby Kezar Falls, Maine, where she features maple bacon cupcakes among her many treats.

Like many of the maple producers interviewed, Rob said they are glad the next generation seems to share that appreciation for the beauty of sugaring.

“We got back into it when our son, Austin, who turned 17 on St. Patrick’s Day, came home from school 10 years ago when he was in the second grade and asked me a question about maple sugaring. It got me back into it and it kind of snowballed from there,” he said.

“It’s just this magic; where this watery sap comes out of the trees and through a lot of work it becomes syrup. I just love the history of it,” said Rob, who when not collecting sap each spring is a delivery driver for AmeriGas.

Rob, with the help of Ciaran and Austin, collect sap in buckets, the old-fashioned way — no tubing for their small operation. It’s all bucket collection, with about 20 buckets on their property and another 80 or so located throughout the town on friends’ properties.

The Hatches sell syrup at local stores, including the newly reopened Village Store in Madison, as well as from his website, mooneyhillmaples.com.

He averages about 30 gallons a year. The general rule is, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, although new evaporator technology has increased the efficiencies of sugaring, along with the use of tubing — but Rob does it the old-fashioned way.

He also keeps a keen eye for good trees. “I pride myself for having a pretty good eye for a good maple,” said Rob. “We’re fortunate to have lived here in Madison for a long time and to have developed a lot of friends, so we trade syrup for the ability to tap their trees. They like doing it because I think they, too, like that New England feeling of nostalgia, of how it used to be.”

That sentiment was shared by Nate Hutchins, who with wife Kate runs Nate & Kates Maples on Route 113 north of the Chatham side of the bottom of Hurricane Mountain Road.

“My great-grandfather was Fred Fernald, and I grew up in his sugarhouse that was located right up the street. I am now collecting syrup from trees that was once his land,” said Nate.

“I feel that connection — and think of him when we are out collecting and making the syrup,” said Nate, who works for K&W Aggregates in Brownfield, Maine. Kate works as a teacher at the New Suncook School in nearby Lovell, Maine.

They have two young children, Savannah, 6, and Abel, 4. “They love it in the sugarhouse, and I am hoping they will want to carry it on when they get older,” said Nate, who is the brother-in-law of Kennett High Principal Kevin Carpenter, who is married to Nate’s sister. Beth.

Even though they’re located in New Hampshire, Nate & Kate’s is participating in the Maine Maple Weekend. (As everyone knows, the New Hampshire-Maine border over there on Route 113 in Chatham and Stow gets a little tricky to decipher what state you’re in anyway).

That love of tradition is shared by John Weston of Weston’s Farm on River Street in Fryeburg, Maine.

The Westons have farmed the banks of the Saco since 1799, and every other generation is a George or a John — in the current scheme, John works with his father, George, and mother Lori and other family members on the sugaring and for Maine Maple Sunday.

Like Erica (Eldridge) Theriault and her family operation in Tamworth, Sean and Julie McManus’ SP Sugar House in Ossipee and Will Streeter’s Mac Hill Maple in Tamworth, Weston’s takes pride in keeping old traditions going.

For Weston, a full-time farmer, it’s also a crop that for farmers has always played a key role in bridging farms from the doldrums of winter into the spring before the greenhouse and planting begins — just as Christmas tree sales serve a similar purpose after the growing season ends and the winter begins.

“We’re down to about 400 trees now around the farm and throughout the village, as landowners let us tap in exchange for syrup. We do all buckets now — we used to have some tubing along the Saco but those trees and the tubing would always get hit by the flooding,” said Weston, who noted that maple syrup is part of the farm’s seasonal mix of offerings.

“It’s another piece of the yearly economic puzzle (for the farm): it gives an early spring income that you would not otherwise have. Then, you start to transition to greenhouses. It’s the same with offering Christmas trees — it helps to bridge the gap for income from the end of the growing season,” said Weston, adding that mud season – and sugaring season – seems to come a lot sooner, and not last as long.

Sharing that concern is Andy Chisholm, a maple syrup producer based in Hampstead.

Chisholm, who is president of the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association, said, “A lot of our producers in the south of New Hampshire say their runs ended March 15,” said Chisholm.

“It will continue to next week or the next two weeks for those in the central part of the state and north up your way,” he added.

Like others interviewed, Chisholm said he loves sugaring because of the tradition. “I recall riding the school bus home as a kid, my face pressed against the glass, looking to see if the steam was coming out of the smokestack at the sugaring houses, meaning that the boiling season was here again, which meant that spring was here,” she said.

“I just think it’s part of New Hampshire, and our history — and I am fortunate to get to be part of it.”

Erica Theriault of Eldridge Family Sugar House in Tamworth, said her family got into it in 2015 as a hobby, then expanded with a new building in 2020. Their ice cream business — featuring Gifford’s ice cream as well as their own maple soft serve ice cream — has become a year-round hit, especially with campers. The whole family pitches in, including her 6-year-old daughter, Rylee, and niece, Adalynn Eldridge, who like to give tours, as does her father, Scott Eldridge, and brother Brandon Eldridge.

“My daughter and niece’s favorite part is the sampling,” laughed Erica.

Sean McManus agrees it’s a labor of love. It’s also a social thing.

“Maple Weekend is just fun seeing everyone come out. You see how people love to be part of it, to see the process and be part of the tradition,” said McManus, a carpenter, who with wife, Julie, runs SP’s Sugar Shack on Valley Road in Center Ossipee.

But for Will Streeter, it’s also his vocation, as he is a sales representative for CDL Maple Sugaring Products, based in St. Albans, Vermont, with his office in Lancaster.

“Sales continue to grow in northern New England, year after year. I think it’s because people are trying to eat cleaner, and when you look at the health benefits ... It’s not processed sugar,” said Streeter.

“Plus, it tastes great on everything,” said Streeter, a New Hampshire native who grew up in Tamworth and started producing maple sugar at Mac Hill Maple when he moved from Redstone back to Tamworth a few years ago.

Focused on sharing the educational components of maple sugaring is the Believe in Books Literacy Foundation’s 100 Acre Wood and Sugarhouse on Observatory Way off Route 16 in Intervale. It is open Fridays-Sundays, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., and the Bartlett Recreation and Athletic Association has Stoney’s Sugar Shack at the Josiah Bartlett Elementary School in Bartlett.

“We have a maple storybook trail that tells the story of a farming family and explains the maple sugaring process,” said Erin Sweeney of Believe in Books.

Annette Libby of Bartlett notes that Stoney’s Sugar Shack allows schoolchildren to incorporate maple sugaring into their learning. Plus, it’s fun for them to collect the buckets of sap — and to sample the results of their work.

“In addition to the 60-plus buckets on the Bert George property, which the students collect, we now have 80-plus plastic taps at our Morrell (Family Community) Complex. So it’s kind of come full circle because we’re making maple syrup from the land that Stoney Morrell gave to the town for the Morrell Family Community Complex, in the sugar shack that was built from timber cleared from that land in the sugar shack named in his honor,” said Libby.

For more on Maine Maple Sunday Weekend, March 26-27, visit mainemapleproducers.com.

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