Well, Tap My Maple!

We've Gone Sap Happy

Yes, the sap is still running. Out of curiosity (and a love of maple) my best friend bored holes in two of our sugar maples in the yard, banged in taps, hung up buckets and stepped back to watch. "They're dripping," shouts out from the back yard (I get drip reports throughout the day). There is now a 5 gallon carboy in the barn full of sap water (maple xylem) and the buckets are still catching drips. Want to know something else? We took a dozen liter bottles of sap water over to our good friend the brew master (he has a carbonator) and he zapped it for us. Sparkling maple juice, yummy! Wait... it gets better. We filled and froze ice cube trays with sap water, now we have sparkling maple juice over maple ice cubes. Hold on there's more, we dribbled a tablespoon of maple syrup (grade B again) into a liter of sparkling maple juice, poured that over a tall glass of iced maple cubes added the all important bendy straw and voila!  You ready?

Mad River Valley tapped, boiled and zapped, "Maple Sap Soda"!

Have a sip; it's on the house. Actually, it's on the floor, the only suitable surface for this picture. Go on, you're gonna love it, that's a promise. I'd even add a slice of lime if I could find one grown in the Valley.

Here are side-by-side glasses of our spring water and maple sap water. Tell any difference? Not until you take a sip, glass on the right has the same cool clean fresh water flavor with a hint of sweetness and that ever so subtle maple finish.

Drink up, it's going fast. 

One more thing, while we're still all sweet and sappy, head on over to Michael Riddells blog and treat yourself to a splendid black and white pictorial of sugaring on the Vasseur Farm MRV style.