I will be packing another bourbon barrel this week, it will be a 10 gal barrel. I also just got a lead on some 15 gallon oak barrels, recently emptied. Hopefully they will be available soon.
When I pack the 10 gallon barrel the syrup will be from a 26.5 gallon SS barrel. The remaining syrup will be packed mostly into half gallon and a few pint jugs. The last 6-8 months by far my sales of regular syrup have been mostly in half gallon jugs with only a few in pints and even fewer by far in quarts. Online I get very few orders for pints, most are for half gallons and one of my 2 sizes in my bourbon barrel aged maple syrup.
2018 was by far my best year ever for sales totals, it’s a good thing a new season is getting close or I would run out of syrup. I had to send customers to a local producer about 7 years ago, I hope I never need to again, even though the few I referred to the other producer all ordered from me the next time around.
So far this year we have only gotten work done in the leased woods 1/2 day. 2 days ago was scheduled to be a work day again, but I cancelled it due to the cold. As we work there we need to work without gloves on, then we slide our hands along the tubing to locate any squirrel chews, at 20F with snow on the tubing our hands soon get too cold to feel any chew marks, thus I cancelled. Most of my help work days and only helps on Saturdays. This morning we had -1 F, but on Wednesday we are supposed to get up to 35 F, that’s when I will be packing the bourbon barrel and the remainder into retail containers. It’s too early to trust Saturday’s forecast.