Somerskogen Sugarbush has begun a joint venture with Tom Slattery of JJ's Wine, Spirits & Cigars in Sioux Falls, SD. http://siouxfallswine.com

Tom found our business via a Google search for maple syrup producers and gave us a call. 

Along with his wife, Jean, Tom brought up a 53 gallon oak barrel that had just been emptied of Buffalo Trace bourbon, aged for 9 years. We did a taste test of various grade syrups to identify which barrel of our maple syrup would incorporate the bourbon oak flavor as the syrup aged.  We settled on the Amber Rich grade as the best choice. 

I tasted a sample at 2 months of aging, and this is going to be a terrific product! The syrup will be bottled in a 375ml unique Nordic bottle - more on this in a future post.   The bourbon barrel aged maple syrup should be ready in a couple more months, so again, . . . . we wait with anticipation!

Check back frequently to see what is happening in the sugarbush! 

   What a difference a year makes! Last year at this time we had already started making maple syrup and this year we wait for warmer weather. While we are nearly prepared, the weather remains too cold to get very excited.  Our 100 taps were put in February 9-10 and the evaporator has been reassembled.

Forecasts indicate warmer temps during the day in the next week  - spring is coming! Here is the latest graph from the weather service:

Now, . . . . .we wait with anticipation!

Our unusual weather conditions surprised and intrigued meteorologists and naturalists alike during March. The ice on Whaletail Lake went out March 5th, the earliest we ever recorded. Five days later the lake froze again when Arctic weather descended upon us. The sap flow ceased and didn't restart for 10 days! The lake ice vanished for the second (and final!) time today. We make no predictions about the lake or the weather.

With the recent warmup, the trees responded with sap flows of over 2 gallons per tap on the last two "runs". We are on pace for a new record of maple syrup production. Our sap remains at 2.5% sugar, which is average for our sugarbush.  This translates to 34 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. The quality of the finished syrup has been outstanding, with rich amber color and unmistakeable smooth maple flavor that lingers on the palate (if you let it linger!)

Our next update will be with a final total - stay tuned!