Fresh winds maple products taste better because they're made better. They've got wholesome, homemade goodness built right in. No plastic tubing or automated processing or packaging is involved in their making. It's all hand gathered, hand processed, and hand packed. It's true Vermont craftsmanship at its finest. Part art, part science, and all delicious! Be sure to stop in to our online store and see our whole line of pure Vermont maple products shipped directly from our table to yours.
 
 

All the sap that is used to make Fresh Winds maple products is gathered by bucket, from hand-tapped trees. No plastic tubing or vacuum pumps are used. This lowers production, but provides a more wholesome product and prevents damage to the trees. The average tree in the Fresh Winds "sugar bush" is well over 100 years old. To protect and sustain the trees, Alec uses no more than 4 taps per tree.

Once the sap is collected, it must be boiled down to make the maple syrup, maple creme, and maple butter. Stoking the fire and keeping a constant high temperature is one of the most important tasks in making the products. It may take as much as 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. In this photo, Clyde is moving quickly to stoke the fire. The longer the firebox is open, the more cool-down effect there is. With good burning wood, Clyde and Alec will stoke the fire about every 5 minutes to keep the sap at about 218 F. degrees.

Inside the sugar house at the peak of boiling, it isn't unusual for the temperature to rise to 85 or 90 degrees, even when it's cold outside. In this photo we see the steam from the boiling process escaping through the vents at Alec's sugar house.

How do you know when the sap is done boiling? Well, it's mostly experience, but one way to see how close you are is called "checking the curtain". A utensil is dipped into the syrup and lifted about 2 feet above the pan. If the syrup drips off, it isn't ready yet. If it forms a curtain though, the syrup is ready to be drawn, filtered, tested and hotpacked. In this photo we see Alec "checking the curtain" on a fresh batch of maple syrup. Is it done yet Alec?

Boiling the sap and packing the maple syrup has to be done in one process to get the best quality. Once you've started, you have to keep going until you're done with the batch. There's always something to be done while you're boiling. In this photo we see Clyde during a rare moment of rest, still keeping a watchful eye on the boiling sap.