Celebrate the sweet stuff with sugar house visits and maple tastings
Season of syrup
New Hampshire Maple Weekend returns
New Hampshire Maple Weekend
When: Saturday, March 19, and Sunday, March 20
Where: Several participating sugarhouses and farms statewide
Visit: nhmapleproducers.com
By Matt Ingersoll
mingersoll@hippopress.com
On March 5 and March 6 Ben’s Sugar Shack in Temple kicked off the first two days of its maple touring season to a great turnout — and an overall “back to normal” type of feeling, operations manager Emily Sliviak said. Free tours are set to continue every weekend through April 3.
“This is the first year that we’re starting to do samples again,” Sliviak said. “Everyone wanted a sample, and it was great to see that nobody really seemed uncomfortable or scared or anything, especially in the evaporator room, just because it is kind of a tighter space.”
Ben’s is one of hundreds of sugarhouses across the Granite State gearing up for New Hampshire Maple Weekend, happening on Saturday, March 19, and Sunday, March 20. Maple producers large and small traditionally hold open houses throughout the weekend — or all month long in March — for families to visit, take a free tour, and sample syrup and other maple goodies.
It’s overseen by the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association, a nonprofit founded in 1943 that now represents roughly 350 maple purveyors statewide, president Andrew Chisholm said.
“Last year we decided to advertise it as Maple Month so that producers would have the option to spread everything out over the entire month and not have large groups come to sugarhouses, as is common on Maple Weekend,” said Chisholm, a maple producer himself who runs Chisholm Farm in Hampstead. “This year we’re doing kind of a hybrid, so we’re giving producers the option to advertise themselves as participating in Maple Month or Maple Weekend, and then my guess is that by 2023 we’ll hopefully be fully back to … calling it a Maple Weekend.”
Here’s a look at how this year’s maple sugaring season has gone so far in southern New Hampshire and what you can expect when you visit a local sugarhouse on Maple Weekend.
Maple warm pudding
Courtesy of Ben’s Sugar Shack in Temple. Recipe by Mareh Bleecker
2½ cups whole milk
⅔ cup maple sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Strawberry jam
Fresh whipped cream
In a small bowl, mix half a cup of cold milk with the cornstarch. Place the remaining two cups of milk, the maple sugar and the salt in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook just until the mixture begins to steam. Add the cornstarch mixture and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture starts to thicken and barely reaches a boil, about 5 minutes. Immediately reduce the heat to very low and stir for five minutes until thick. Remove the pudding from the heat and stir in the butter and vanilla extract. Spoon the pudding into individual jars or ramekins and let cool slightly. Top with jam, compote, fresh fruit and whipped cream.
Tapping traditions
Tours are offered at Ben’s every 15 minutes between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. and will typically last about half an hour depending on questions, Sliviak said. Attendees learn all about the process of collecting sap and the importance of daily maintenance of the trees, especially against windy or rainy weather conditions and the intrusions of animals like squirrels, bears and moose.
“We walk them across the woods to where they can see the modern way of collecting, which is through the tubing system and the vacuum system,” she said. “Then we’ll walk groups back over to where the trucks will bring the sap. We have a 10,000-gallon holding tank, and all of the sap from there will run into the reverse osmosis room, which is a fancy system that separates the water from the sugar molecules … and that makes it much less work for the evaporator to boil.”
Depending on the sugar content levels and the time of the season, Sliviak said it takes roughly 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. After the reverse osmosis process, the sap then runs into the evaporator room, where tour attendees learn about the boiling, filtering and bottling of the syrup, as well as the grades that are produced and how each is different in taste.
Samples are provided at the conclusion of the tour, and a gift shop will also have various maple products for sale. Last weekend Ben’s began offering maple ice cream — that’s expected to continue through the last two weekends of the month, Sliviak said, in addition to their maple roasted nuts, maple cotton candy and their popular maple doughnuts.
“We’re just kind of easing into everything and gradually getting back into all of the other stuff that we normally would do with the tours,” Sliviak said.
In May, following the end of this year’s production season, Ben’s is expected to break ground on a new 16,000-square-foot building on the corner of Route 101 and Webster Highway in Temple, which Sliviak said will accommodate tours that much better by this time next year.
Chisholm will similarly open his operation up for free tours, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day of Maple Weekend. He’ll have maple ice cream sourced from Shaw Farm just over the state line in Dracut, Mass., as well as maple doughnuts and a variety of his own products available for sale.
“What I like to do that’s a little unique are infused maples, so I do a vanilla-infused maple and a cinnamon-infused maple, and then also some barrel-aged stuff,” he said.
Weathering the storm
Despite a slow start to the 2022 maple season, the temperatures over the last couple of weeks and the forecast have set the stage for an ideal Maple Weekend, according to Sliviak.
“A lot of times we’re able to produce a decent amount in January and even in February, and that was not the case this year,” she said. “We’re looking for warmer days and colder nights, ideally 40 degrees or 45 at the most, but definitely a slight freeze at night, so around 25 to 30 degrees. … Overall it looks like it’s going to turn out really well, and one of the reasons is because of the amount of rain that we had in the past year, in the summer, fall and through the winter, even.”
It’s already shaping out to be a better season for sugarhouses compared to last year, which Chisholm said was widely classified as a disaster due to very warm and dry conditions.
“Most producers only made about 40 percent of what they would expect to make, myself included,” he said. “Last year was an early start and a very early finish. … It warmed up real quick at the end of March, and I think for us down here in southern New Hampshire it never went below freezing. As a whole the 2021 season was a short crop across the entire region.”
Sugarhouses haven’t been immune to rising costs and supply chain issues impacting all kinds of industries in the pandemic’s wake, from plastic containers and glass bottles and jars to everything in between. But with that, Sliviak said sales of and demand for syrup are still up from before.
“We literally had some farm stands double their average sales with us last year,” she said. “I don’t really know what it’s from, whether people are more out and about or their kids are home more and they needed maple syrup, but we’re still seeing that upward trend.”
Maple onion jam
Courtesy of Ben’s Sugar Shack in Temple. Recipe by Mareh Bleecker
2 large onions, thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
2 Tablespoons neutral oil (grapeseed, avocado or ghee)
2 Tablespoons Ben’s organic maple syrup
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1½ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
Heat a saucepan over medium heat. Add the oil, onions and salt. Turn the heat to low and cook, stirring frequently until the onions begin to soften and turn translucent. Add maple syrup, black pepper and thyme. Add a little bit of water if the onions begin to stick to the bottom of the pan. Continue to cook the onions for 25 to 30 minutes or until the onions are caramelized and deep brown in color. Add the mustard and lemon juice and stir for one minute. Taste for seasoning and adjust as needed. Pour into a small jar and let it cool. Refrigerate for up to two weeks.
Visit a sugarhouse
Here are some local farms and sugarhouses participating in this year’s New Hampshire Maple Weekend, scheduled for Saturday, March 19, and Sunday, March 20. Some will be offering maple sugaring tours and demonstrations, while others will be selling and providing samples of a variety of maple-infused products. Be sure to contact each one directly for their most up-to-date plans for Maple Weekend. For a full list of sugarhouses, visit nhmapleproducers.com.
• 6 Saplings Sugarhouse (31 Kearsarge Valley Road, Wilmot, 526-2167, find them on Facebook) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., offering tours, samples and products for sale, from maple syrup to maple cream, sugar, candied nuts and more.
• Babel’s Sugar Shack (323 Hurricane Hill Road, Mason, 878-3929, find them on Facebook) Open on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., for an open house, with samples and syrup for sale.
• Beaver Brook Maple (1 Beaver Brook Drive, Bow, 491-0500, find them on Facebook @bbmaple) Open on Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. for maple demonstrations.
• Beaver Meadowbrook Farm Sugar House (402 Route 103 East, Warner, 224-2452, find them on Facebook) Visitors welcome any time, but calling ahead is recommended. Face masks are required when inside the sugar house.
• Ben’s Sugar Shack (83 Webster Hwy., Temple; 693 Route 103, Newbury; 924-3111, bensmaplesyrup.com) Open on Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free maple sugaring tours are offered every 15 minutes and last about a half hour, depending on questions. Samples and products for sale include maple syrup, soft serve, doughnuts, roasted nuts and more.
• Beyond the Horizon Farm (19 Gillis Hill Road, Bennington, 588-6210, beyondthehorizonfarm.com) Open on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring complimentary maple cinnamon swirl rolls and doughnuts as well as coffee, cocoa and tea while supplies last.
• Blueberry Hill Sugarworks (31 Blueberry Hill Road, Raymond, 300-6837, wickedsappy.com) Open weekends during maple season; hours vary. Check back on the website or call for details.
• Charmingfare Farm (774 High St., Candia, 483-5623, visitthefarm.com) Open Saturday and Sunday for its annual Maple Express event, to be held at various times between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. each day. Tickets start at $22 and include horse-drawn and tractor train rides, maple syrup demonstrations and tours, taste testing, visits with the animals and more.
• Chisholm Farm (641 Main St., Hampstead, 421-4727, chisholmfarm.com) Open on Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tours will be conducted on an on-demand basis and a variety of products will be available, from maple ice cream and doughnuts to all kinds of infused syrups.
• Chris-Mich 3 Farm (285 Elm Ave., Antrim, 588-2157, find them on Facebook @chrismich3farm) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a variety of maple products available, from maple syrup to maple cream, sugar, candies, walnuts and more.
• Connolly’s Sugar House (140 Webster Hwy., Temple, 924-5002, find them on Facebook) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., for tours. Connolly’s, which is also a family-owned dairy farm, will have its own maple ice cream made fresh on site with its syrup.
• Dill Family Farm (61 Griffin Road, Deerfield, 475-3798, find them on Facebook) Open on Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring maple syrup samples available, in addition to maple candy, cream and sugar for sale.
• Fletcher & Family Sugar House (2528 E. Washington Road, Washington, 340-4035, fletcher-farm.com) Open on Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring maple syrup, candy and sugar for purchase, in addition to some free samples. Coffee, hot chocolate and doughnuts will be served in the morning and hot dogs and chips will be served for lunch.
• Folsom’s Sugar House (130 Candia Road, Chester, 370-0908, folsomsugarhouse.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tours will be ongoing throughout each day, and there will be a variety of specialty products available, from maple syrup, candies and cream to maple barbecue sauce, mustard, pepper seasonings and pancake mixes.
• Gould Hill Farm (656 Gould Hill Road, Contoocook, 746-3811, gouldhillfarm.com) Open on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring free maple syrup samples, as well as cider doughnuts and maple hard cider for sale. The Contoocook Cider Co.’s tasting room will also have live music by Colin Hart from 1 to 4 p.m. that day.
• Ice Mountain Maple (276 Queen St., Boscawen, 341-4297, icemountainmaple.com) Open on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., offering maple syrup and candy for sale, as well as maple coffee.
• Jessie James Maple Farm (164 Allens Mill Road, Gilmanton, 267-6428, jessiejamesmaple.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., featuring its own maple syrup for sale, in addition to other specialty products like maple mustard, maple chipotle seasoning and cinnamon maple sugar.
• Journey’s End Maple Farm (295 Loudon Road, Pittsfield, 252-6669, journeysendmaplefarm.com) Open on Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., featuring live maple sugaring demonstrations, a local vendor pop-up event and a variety of maple products for sale, from maple syrup to iced maple lattes, maple shakes, sundaes, cotton candy and more.
• Kaison’s Sugar House (75 Forest Road, Weare, 660-6019, find them on Facebook @kaisonssugarhouse) Open on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., featuring maple sugaring demonstrations and maple products for sale like syrup, lollipops and candy drops (cash only).
• Kearsarge Gore Farm (173 Gore Road, Warner, 456-2319, teamkgf.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., for maple sugaring demonstrations and syrup samples.
• Ledge Top Sugar House (25 Oak St., Boscawen, 753-4973, ledgetop.com) Open on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., featuring maple syrup and other products for sale.
• Main Street Maple and Honey Farm (186 Main St., Belmont, 527-9071, mainstreetmapleandhoney.com) Open on Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., featuring maple syrup making demonstrations and a variety of products for sale.
• Mapletree Farm (105 Oak Hill Road, Concord, 224-0820, mapletreefarmnh.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring self-guided maple sugaring tours and a variety of maple products available, like maple syrup, cream, candy and more.
• Matras Maple (821 Catamount Road, Pittsfield, 724-9427, find them on Facebook @matrasmaple) Open on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 12:30 to 5 p.m. There will be maple syrup making demonstrations and all kinds of maple products for sale, like maple cream, maple sugar and local ice cream topped with maple syrup and crunchy candies.
• Munson’s Maple (44 Blueberry Hill Road, Raymond, 303-8278, find them on Facebook) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., for maple tours, samples and products for sale.
• Old Pound Road Sugar House (37 Old Pound Road, Antrim, 588-3272, oldpoundroadsugarhouse.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring maple tours and a variety of free samples, like coffee, maple syrup and candy.
• Parker’s Maple Barn (1316 Brookline Road, Mason, 878-2308, parkersmaplebarn.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for maple tours, and specialty products like gourmet maple coffee and maple glazed doughnuts will also be available for sale.
• Peterson Sugar House (28 Peabody Row, Londonderry, 383-8917, pokeypeterson038@yahoo.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from noon to 5 p.m., featuring maple sugaring demonstrations, maple syrup samples and various maple products for sale.
• Pfeil Family Farm (311 Cram Hill Road, Lyndeborough, 801-3158, pfeilfamilymaple.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring maple syrup for sale as well as coffee, doughnuts and other various maple products.
• Remick Country Doctor Museum & Farm (58 Cleveland Hill Road, Tamworth, 323-7591, remickmuseum.org) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., featuring outdoor maple sugaring demonstrations and maple syrup for sale while supplies last.
• Ridgeland Farm (736 Loudon Ridge Road, Loudon, 520-4337, ridgelandfarmnh.com) Open on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring tours of the sugarhouse and samples of maple syrup and maple peanut butter fudge.
• SMD Maple Syrup (6 Falcon Drive, Merrimack, 978-815-6476, find them on Facebook @smdmaplesyrup) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., featuring maple syrup making demonstrations, samples, maple syrup for sale and more.
• Somero Maple Farm (21 Poor Farm Road, New Ipswich, 562-0822, someromaplefarm.com) Open on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., featuring free maple syrup making tours and a variety of products available for sampling and for sale.
• The Sugar House at Morning Star Farm (30 Crane Crossing Road, Plaistow, 479-0804, find them on Facebook @thesugarhouseatmorningstarfarm) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., offering its full line of maple products, which include syrups, cream, jelly, mustard, nuts, candy, confections, homemade doughnuts and more.
• Sunnyside Maples (1089 Route 106 N, Loudon, 848-7090, sunnysidemaples.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring maple sugaring demonstrations and several maple products for sale in its gift shop, like syrup, cream, mustard, candy, seasonings, coffee, pancake mixes and more.
• Trail Side Sugar House (246 Currier Road, Andover, 748-1307, trailsidesugarhouse.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., offering maple tours, samples and demonstrations. Available products all weekend will include maple syrup, candy, cream, barbecue sauce, mustard, doughnuts, cotton candy, nuts and whoopie pies.
• Turkey Street Maples (673 Turkey St., Chocorua, 323-9320, turkeystreetmaples.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., featuring maple sugaring demonstrations and various maple products available for purchase, including syrup and cotton candy.
• Two Sappy Guys Sugar Shack (324 Joppa Hill Road, Bedford, 860-7992, find them on Facebook @2sappyguys) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring fresh maple syrup for sale.
• Windswept Maples Farm (845 Loudon Ridge Road, Loudon, 491-9130, windsweptmaples.com) Open Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring maple demonstrations and maple syrup, maple sugar candy and other products for sale.
Featured photo: Maple sugaring tours at Ben’s Sugar Shack in Temple. Courtesy photo.