our mascot Skogen stands on an Old Elk bourbon barrel that holds 53 gallons of Somerskogen‘s finest maple syrup. At the conclusion of this syrup season we will bottle this up in the special Nordic bottles and hand sealed in wax. This is used in bars and restaurants in addition to your make at home cocktails taking the place of simple syrup. It is also great for routine use , baking and cooking.It also makes great gifts . Try it!

Wednesday March 30 we suddenly experienced a vacuum pump failure! Not only does it double the sap production, it’s required to activate a sap lifter from 300 taps and lift it 14 feet to cross a driveway!! Fortunately the excellent staff @Roth Sugarbush had two ace technicians,Kellen and Dave, who took the pump apart , identified and repaired the pump and I was back on the road in 2 hours !

Mary and I reinstalled the pump the next morning and we hardly missed a beat!👍.We’ve made 250 gallons of syrup so far and the color profile has gone from Dark Robust, to Amber Rich and yesterday we made a barrel of Golden Delicious syrup. All is very good and full flavored. The next several days look very favorable for good sap flows.

The temperature has been above freezing for over 2 days so the sap flow has diminished significantly. With our high vacuum running at 26+ in. Hg we’ve obtained about 1/2 gal. per tap per day. Those on gravity systems have seen much less. We have boiled 3 times and will again tomorrow. BTW , that is our mascot Skogen at the ready!