We made it thru another year and steered clear of Covid 19, I hope you and yours did as well. According to my resident expert (my wife of 53+ years) everyone will end up with Covid 19, mostly this new Omicron variant. My wife is a retired RN and has studied Covid, not by listening to the MSM, but by listening to hundreds of hours of study results in peer reviewed studies by doctors and scientists from across the globe. Keep well all.
I still have Amber and Dark syrup but will likely run out of some sizes of Amber before the 2022 season starts here in central nys. That does not mean I sell more Amber, in fact I sell about 2x as much Dark as I do Amber every year. Last year, 2021 (crop) I got 2 barrels of Amber syrup and 5 barrels of Dark after filling my retail stock in both grades. I still have 1 barrel of dark when I need to pack more in retail jugs and bottles, but no more Amber, and I started at the beginning of last season with almost no Amber at all, right now I still have plenty of Amber in Qts and Half Gal, low on smaller sizes, in Dark I’m low on many sizes, but not low enough to open that last barrel and I just packed another barrel of Dark in mid December and the previous one was in early October, my last barrel of Amber was packed in early Sept.
Locally my sales were a record breaker for the year as well as most individual months, may this trend continue.
The new season around here can start as early as mid January or as late as the end of march. One year my first boil was March 29, another year first boil was Jan 18. It all depends on the weather. In order to get a first boil I need a minimum of 250 gal of fresh sap, if sap gets warm is spoils like milk would and is not good for making good syrup, it can however be made into commercial syrup (not legal to retail) which is often used to make dark maple sugar or other commercial uses.) I do still have a good supply of my bourbon barrel aged maple syrup and if any of my 3 sizes run low I have extra (6 gal) in bulk to fill more bottles. I may however run out before the next batch is ready. Lately all batches have been 15 gal barrels and a 15 gal barrel takes 9-10 months to get to the ideal flavor, thus that may be ready in Nov-Dec for next Christmas sales. I have also purchased bourbon barrel aged maple syrup in the original oak barrel from one friend locally who makes great tasting BB aged syrup but does little if any retail sales. His season often starts a little ahead of mine.
I’ll sign off for now but I’ll post when the season gets rolling again. Looking for cold nights, warm days, that makes the sap run.
Dave