The history of Vermont Maple Syrup is steeped in legend. The legend behind the World Famous Product is almost as great as the product itself. As legend has it, a Native American Chief returning to his village after a hunting trip threw his tomahawk into a sugar maple tree trunk. The spring sun warmed the tree and sap ran down the bark from the cut the tomahawk had made and into a birch bark container left under the tree. Thinking the crystal clear sap was water, the Chief’s wife poured it in with some meat she was cooking. As the water boiled away, a sticky sweet glaze formed on the meat, adding a wonderfully sweet maple flavor to the meal. It was then, at that very moment, Vermont Maple Syrup was born and the rich maple flavor from the sugar maple tree was discovered. Early explorers recorded maple sugar serving as the only source of energy sustaining Native Peoples over the long hard winter months.
When settlers came with metal tools, they drilled small holes in the trees, whittled wooden spouts and replaced the wooden troughs used by Native Peoples with wooden buckets and covers. They made their maple sugar in large iron kettles suspended over a fire by wooden poles or tripods. Making maple sugar was becoming more and more common in Vermont, since Vermont is a land locked state and it is some distance from any seaport where white sugar was imported.
As maple sugaring evolved, arches were built, containing the heat from roaring wood fires and holding large flat pans on top. Building to house these “boilers” was the next step. Sugarhouses today still resemble those early structures with the characteristic cupola on the roof allowing the sweet maple scented steam to billow forth. This is where Northeast Maple came into the picture. Northeast Maple has been tapping, boiling, and creating maple syrup products in the traditional way since their conception. They only use the best and highest quality Vermont Sugar Maple Sap producing their famous Vermont Maple Syrup products.