Vermont Maple Open House Weekend 2010

I love all things seasonal.  I realize that I am very lucky to live in New England because there are so many wonderful seasonal activities available to us throughout the year.  However, despite growing up in New England, I have never had the opportunity to visit an actual Vermont maple sugarhouse.  So when I met S, one of B's close friends from college, and discovered that she comes from a well-known maple sugar family, I could not stop asking her (i.e. harassing her) to take me to Vermont for a visit.  We unfortunately missed the sugar season last year but this year S found out about Vermont's Maple Open House weekend and planned our trip well in advance.

We started out bright and early this past Sunday morning with S, her boyfriend O, B and I.  I was like a kid on Christmas - an excited squirmy mess.  The roads were clear and during the drive up, S told us a lot about the history of her own family's maple sugar farm.  Although we weren't going to visit her family farm that day, she had done some research to figure out which were the best maple sugar farms to visit based on reputation and history.

When we reached Vermont, we made a pit stop at the Vermont Visitor Center for me to pick up some literature about the Maple Open House weekend.  This was the ninth year that the State of Vermont was hosting this weekend-long public event which gives members of the public to visit participating sugarhouses.  With pamphlets in hand, we were off to our first farm.  Of course not without stopping to take some cheesy touristy photos!

Our first stop was at Dwight Miller & Son Orchards in East Dummerston.  As you can tell by the name, this farm contains orchards of apples, peaches, plums and pear trees.  They also harvest woodlots for on-farm lumber use along with a large sweet maple crop from their sugarbush. 

We were greeted by the owner, Read Miller, who taught us a lot about the maple sap gathering process.  He should know - his family has the longest run maple syrup farm in Vermont and he explained that his family has farmed on the very same piece of land since before Vermont was even declared a state!  While we munched on his wife's fresh cider doughnuts (yum!), he explained the science of tapping a maple tree and gathering the sap.  When he was done explaining, he brought us outside so we could really understand what he was talking about.  

I was luckily selected to drill the hole in a maple tree.  Okay, maybe it was less that I was luckily chosen and more that my hand shot up fast and high when he asked if anyone was interested!

I drilled the hole and then another visitor got to help hammer the tap in.  Although we used a traditional spout and bucket here, most farms (including this one) use pressurized vacuums and tubing these days.

Read Miller was incredibly informative and the school geek in me was really fascinated by all of the science involved in an industry that relies mostly on the luck and chance of a season's weather.  Also, after some teasing about my Red Sox hat (he is apparently a big Yankees fan), when I told him that I lived in Boston, Read told me that I could find some of their produce products from the home delivery service Boston Organics.  In fact, the orchards, as well as berries, field crops and greenhouses are all managed organically and for over thirteen years, Dwight Miller & Son Orchards has been producing certified organic fruit and produce.  With this information, we of course had to pick up some of their frozen sweet corn on the cob along with a pint of this season's maple syrup!

Then we were on our way to our next stop - Sweet Maple Alpacas in Westminster.  Here, we were happy to find a sugarhouse that was boiling sap.  The aroma of this sweet sugarhouse was intoxicating with the smoky maple wood scents along with the sweetly familiar maple sugar aroma.  This is what heaven has to smell like.

Here we learned about what happens to the sap after it has been collected.  We were told that every afternoon (weather permitting) sap is pumped into a gathering tank and brought to the sugarhouse for boiling.  The sap is boiled on a wood fired stainless steel arch and it takes about forty gallons of sap to make just one gallon of pure maple syrup.

This farm was unique because in addition to maple syrup, they farm...alpacas!  

There were over a dozen or so sweet alpacas and we even got to pet a few of them. 

While the alpacas were sweet, I fell in love with the family's dog - a St. Bernard and Bernese Mountain Dog mix named Gretchen.

Our final maple syrup destination was a stop at Harlow's Sugar House in Putney.  

While there were no demonstrations going on, we did manage to stock up on some great Vermont treats including a small bag of their house-made maple candies, Highland Foods' maple pepper seasoning with habanero (technically a Maine product) and some house-made pickles.  We also shared their hot out-of-the fryer corn fritters with a generous douse of maple syrup.  Yum!  


As we were leaving the Sugar House we noticed some historical pieces, included an old box of maple candies from Coombs Family Farm! S recounted having to pack these boxes when she was growing up and helping in the family business.

Full from all of our maple syrup tastings (yes there were tastings at each visit), we didn't eat anything all morning and realized that we were famished for lunch.  We stopped in at S' favorite spot, Vermont Country Deli, in Brattleboro.  This place was a foodie's delight with lots of fresh made sandwiches, entrees and baked goods, along with a plethora of local culinary treats.  I made my own sandwich on soft wheatberry bread with Vermont cheddar (of course), turkey breast, pickles, tomato, lettuce and the most delightfully tangy horseradish mayo.  I also very strangely got a small side of seaweed salad and this made a perfect lunch for me.

I had a fantastic time in Vermont and was so glad that my friend S planned this wonderfully educational and seasonal maple sugar experience.  Although the open house weekend is over, a lot of sugar houses are open all year long for visitors and you can find a list of those here.  There is also the Vermont Maple Festival, which will take place on April 30-May 2 in St. Albans, Vermont.

Now that I have fresh maple syrup and this intriguing maple pepper seasoning, I can't wait to find different ways to use it in my kitchen and I suspect my maple sugar adventures are only beginning...