By Jean Schurman
This time of year is slow for the Daly Mansion, as slow as maple syrup. Literally. There are only tours by appointment and most of the time is spent doing maintenance to the old buildings. Many years ago, Dr. Charles Petty and Fred Hasskamp looked at the sugar maples lining the lane into the mansion, and the maples on the grounds, and decided to try tapping them to make maple syrup. Their effort went well and now is a yearly event.
The tapping party doesn’t happen on a set day but instead it depends upon when the sap starts running. There is a maple tree outside the back door of the mansion that is tapped early in the year. Mansion director Darlene Gould keeps an eye on it and when the sap starts dripping into the container, she calls out the troops. The two inch holes are drilled into the trees and the spigot attached with a small hose that leads into either a five-gallon bucket or a milk jug. Then they wait. Ideal conditions are when the temperature drops to below 32 degrees F and rises above 40 degrees during the day.
“We go day to day,” said Bob Gibson.
Gibson, who is also a tour guide in the summer and “Cutler the Butler” at Daly Days and “Jason” during the Haunted Hayride, took over heading up the tapping and processing of the sap. He said there are many people who help with the tapping. Once the sap is in the buckets, then it has to be boiled down. His helpers, Kurt Stoehr and Dick Galiher, join him for the daylong process.
First, a fire is built and once the coals are hot, a contraption that looks much like a drawer out of a chest of drawers is placed over the fire. The receptacle is made of metal and has handles on it. The sap is poured into the ‘pot’ and the stirring, fire stoking, and story telling begins. As the liquid boils, the water from the sap boils off, leaving the syrup. It takes 40 parts sap to make one part syrup. During the course of the sap sucking (they like to call it that) and syrup making, the men will process from 300 to 400 gallons of sap which is about four ‘boils’ or days spent at the fire.
After the processing, the syrup is strained through a couple of cloth filters. Each boil is different and usually comes out a different color. The fellows go by sound – they say the liquid emits a sizzling sound – and sight, when the liquid is reduced down to about four inches in the container. Because they use an open fire, this syrup has a distinctive smoky flavor. The syrup is strained again when they bottle it, but all three gentlemen were quick to assure that happened in the kitchen in the mansion on a different day.
The syrup is in high demand and rapidly sells out. It is only available at the Daly Mansion gift store. Much like when the sap begins to flow, there isn’t a set date as to when the maple syrup goes on sale.
All agree, this harbinger of spring is a labor of love. Or is that just too sappy?