Sugar Shack - Real Maple Syrup

We almost didn't get to see an authentic sugar shack producing Maple Syrup (except for Nic - who forgot to invite his family!) However, our neighbour, Eugene, wandered over one evening to tell us that one of his friends was currently making syrup. We all followed Eugene and Maddison to Paul's rustic sugar shack and they got us out to work straight away.

We checked the pails on the maple trees for maple sap and emptied the sap into larger pails that was taken to the Sugar Shack via a network of hoses. Some of the maple sap looked clear ,other trees had a richer golden tinge. Funnily enough the sap comes out pretty tasteless and runny and it’s not until it’s boiled up and reduced does it have the beautiful syrupy flavour and thickness. This means that a lot more sap is collected than it actually makes and considering the labour intensive collection and the reduction in sap once boiled, it’s perfectly understandable why real maple syrup is so expensive. It takes about 44 litres of sap to make a litre of syrup! (We were even lucky enough to get some free syrup and are currently enjoying it as often as we can eat pancakes!)