Region’s maple season is off to a sweet start
LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. » Nick Perrone couldn’t wait to get up Tuesday and see what Mother Nature had provided overnight.
Warms days and cool nights are perfect for sugar making, as this is what makes sap run.
With a big collection on hand, Perrone fired up his evaporator and began boiling to make maple syrup, his first batch of what looks to be a promising season.
“This weather is perfect for sugaring,” he said. “It looks like it’s off to a good start. Whatever happens, we’ve had three great years in a row, so you can’t complain.”
Perrone, 22, got started in the business six years ago with a half-dozen buckets hanging from trees and a homemade evaporator built from a 55-gallon drum. With help from his father, a home builder, Perrone constructed a small red sugaring house, installed a Leader evaporator and went into business as Nick’s Sugar Shack.
He’s among the growing number of first-generation producers that have started making maple on their own, without having it passed down from other family members.
“What interests me most about sugar making is that you can take such a raw product, and by doing nothing more than boiling it, make something so sweet,” Perrone said. “I love maple. I put it on everything — apple pie, sausage and eggs, and I especially like it on Stewart’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. We go through a gallon-and-a-half of syrup per year at my house.”
His small, 500-tap operation produces about 100-125 gallons of syrup per year, but he hopes to expand operations as time and money allow.
Perrone’s vacuum pump driven system collects sap in large plastic tanks, which he brings to the sugarhouse for boiling. Before bottling, syrup goes through a high-pressure press to remove small impurities, resulting in a high grade of sweet-tasting product.
In addition to sugar maple trees, Perrone also taps silver and red maples, which increases the operation’s sap run without affecting flavor or color. However, he pays close attention to the weather because soft silver and red maple trees tend to bud earlier than hard sugar maples, which does affect taste.
Perrone’s only concern with the 2018 season is that snow arrived before early winter’s extreme cold spell, so there isn’t much frost in the ground. If the weather suddenly turns warm, that warmth gets into tree roots, trees suck up water and start to bud, which brings sugar making to a halt.
A tree-tapping ceremony to officially kick off the region’s season is scheduled for noon on Friday, March 9 at Maple Acres in Granville. Maple is now included in the state’s New York Grown and Certified program that recognizes producers whose maple goods comes from trees in New York, and who follow sustainable forestry practices and state food safety standards.
New York is the nation’s second-leading maple producing state behind only Vermont.
Visitors may take free tours 25 Upper Hudson Maple Producers Association sugarhouses during Open House Weekends scheduled for March 17-18 and March 24-25.
“Most sugarhouses offer samples and demonstrations, and many of the locations serve a pancake breakfast as well, for a nominal fee,” said David Campbell, association president.