Spring brings return of NH Maple Experience to The Rocks

Maple syrup lovers, rejoice! The New Hampshire Maple Experience returns to The Rocks Estate March 15 and will run weekends through April 5.

Tapping a sugar maple at the NH Maple Experience

Anyone who’s visited during the Maple Experience in past years knows the event is a feast of the senses, with spectacular views, the heavenly sent of sap boiling into syrup, and – to top it all off – a syrup tasting, complete with fresh donuts and the requisite sour pickles.

Maple Experience visitors learn about the history of maple sugaring and are invited to jump right into the process by helping identify sugar maple trees, drill and tap them to collect sap, and fill a New Hampshire Maple Experience commemorative mason jar with warm syrup at our own sugar house.

While at the sugar house, guests will see fourth-generation sugar maker Brad Presby at work. Brad loves to spin a good yarn, and he’ll happily answer questions about his springtime work of making maple syrup and sugar.

Maple Experience tours also include a horse-drawn wagon ride through the Estate, with an interpretive guide on board each wagon to share information about sugaring and the history of The Rocks.

The New Hampshire Maple Experience runs March 15, 22-23, 29-30 and April 5, with tours scheduled throughout the day. Reservations are recommended and may be made by e-mailing info@therocks.org or calling 603-444-6228.

For more information about the Maple Experience, please check out the New Hampshire Maple Experience website.

Gift shop at The Rocks offers everything maple… and then some!

When you walk into the main building at The Rocks Estate to start your New Hampshire Maple Experience, you’ll notice a unique gift shop filled to brimming with locally made gift items and maple everything!

Gift shop manager Carleen Quinn says she brings in new items each season, along with longstanding customer favorites. This year she points out the life-sized wooden bears carved by a local artist as the latest and greatest.

Here’s her list of maple offerings at the shop, a boon for all lovers of maple:

* Maple syrup, one of a kind, made only here at The Rocks – all sizes in stock.

* Freshly made maple kettle corn – popped right here by the folks from Kingdom Kernels Kettle Corn Co. in Vermont.

 *Any kind of maple product anyone could want, including maple candy, moose maple pops, maple bites, maple cream, and maple sugar.

Be sure to take a wander through the shop during your Maple Experience!

Maple, music, and microbrews at 3rd Annual Maple Dinner

Maple, music, and microbrews come together April 13 for the 3rd Annual Maple Dinner at The Rocks Estate. Join us as we celebrate the conclusion of another maple sugaring season with local flavors – all while raising funds for The Rocks Projects Fund, which helps finance educational programs offered year-round at the farm. 

The dinner will feature maple culinary delights from Chef Joe Peterson, microbrewed beer from the Woodstock Inn Station & Brewery, and live entertainment from local musicians Barbara Desroches, Greg Odell, and Matt Hecklinger.

For more information and to make reservations, please visit our online calendar.

Rocks Estate to host Maple Dinner April 14

If you love good food, you won’t want to miss our Second Annual Maple Dinner at The Rocks Estate! Last year’s inaugural Maple Dinner earned rave reviews, and we anticipate this year’s event to sell out quickly, so be sure to make your reservation early.

“This is a great way to celebrate spring and the conclusion of our maple sugaring season and to enjoy local food,” said Nigel Manley, manager of The Rocks Estate.

The Maple Dinner will be held April 14^th at The Rocks, beginning at 6 p.m. Cost for the Maple Dinner is $40 per person, with $10 from each dinner donated to The Rocks Project Fund, which supports the year-round educational programs at The Rocks. The Rocks Estate is the North Country Conservation and Education Center of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

Returning to wow diners is Chef Joe of Sugar Hill, who will incorporate maple syrup throughout the menu. Dishes will include wood-roasted pork loin with apple maple cream, baked haddock with toasted walnuts and maple drizzle, roasted red potatoes, fresh grilled vegetables, and apple crisp with fresh cream. The Woodstock Inn Station &Brewery will offer two of its local micro-brewed beers to accompany the meal.

To make reservations or for more information, please e-mail info@therocks.org or call 603-444-6228.

Last chance to get your Maple Experience!

This Saturday is the final day of the season for the New Hampshire Maple Experience at The Rocks Estate!

Join us for hands-on learning about the process and long tradition of maple sugaring. Along the way you’ll tour the beautiful and historic Rocks Estate via horse-drawn wagon, visit our on-site sugar house and learn from fourth generation maple sugarer Brad Presby, and enjoy delicious maple syrup samples.

If pancakes and syrup aren’t enough to satisfy your palate, you’ll want to time your visit to enjoy the maple cooking demonstration by Chef Kirk from the Sunset Hill House in Sugar Hill. He’ll be at the Maple Experience from noon-1 making Maple Marinated Barbeque Shrimp; an endive salad with candied pecans, dried cranberries, and crumbled goat cheese and topped with Maple Balsamic Vinaigrette; and Maple Shortbread.

(For these recipes and others featured during past Maple weekends, check out the recipe page on the New Hampshire Maple Experience website.)

To find out more about the Maple Experience and all it includes, please visit the New Hampshire Maple Experience website. We hope to see you Saturday for the Maple Experience!

Maple Facts for Sugaring Season

It’s easy to love maple syrup – whether poured over pancakes, mixed with olive for a tangy-sweet vinaigrette, or baked into tasty muffins and bread. Making syrup, however, is a long labor of love.

To gear up for the NewHampshire Maple Experience and give you a sneak peak of some of the maple tidbits you’ll learn during sugaring season at The Rocks Estate, here are a few Maple Facts:

      - It takes 40 gallons of sap from sugar maple trees to make one gallon of syrup.

     - Maple sugar and syrup have been produced in the New England woods since the days before European settlers, when Native Americans collected sap in wooden or birch-bark buckets and boiled it down by plunging fire-heated rocks into the sap.

     - European settlers streamlined the sugaring process over time, first collecting sap in buckets and boiling it in large kettles hung over open fires, then moving to wood-fired sugar house operations. Today, large scale maple producers often collect sap in plastic tubing strung between sugar maples and feeding a collection tank, and many sugar houses include heavy duty, gas-powered evaporators to boil the sap into sugar and syrup.

     - Sugaring season is almost entirely weather dependent and lasts about 6 weeks long. Sugar makers in northern New Hampshire generally tap their trees in mid- to late February, and the season may last into early April. Ultimate sap flow through the trees happens with below-freezing nights and mild days. Once the sugar maple trees leaf out, the trees’ sap turns from sweet to bitter, and sugaring season is over.

     - Sugar makers often mark trees during the summer and fall months, so they can easily identify sugar maples during the late winter and early spring days of collecting sap. During sugaring season, they use trees’ buds and branch configuration to distinguish sugar maples from red maples and other species.

     - A sugar maple should be at least 10 inches in diameter– which translates to 40 years or older – to be tapped for syrup. Older, larger trees can support multiple taps, as long as they’re placed properly.

To learn how to identify trees, properly tap a sugar maple to collect sap, and see sugaring demonstrated by a fourth-generation sugar maker, come to The Rocks Estate and enjoy the New Hampshire Maple Experience! Maple tours are offered this year March 17, 24-25, 31-April 1, and April 7 and feature maple syrup tastings, cooking demonstrations by acclaimed local chefs, horse-drawn wagon rides through the historic Rocks Estate property, and lots of fun!

Fall Wonders at The New Hampshire Maple Experience

Maple trees provide us with many gifts through the year: sweet maple syrup in the spring, cool leafy shade in summer, and an array of brilliant colors in autumn. Fall foliage season is a beautiful time to visit the New Hampshire Maple Experience, located at the historic Rocks Estate. Wander the wooded trails, filled with a kaleidoscope of color, en route to the Maple Museum, where you'll enjoy a virtual tour of the sugar making process in the sugar house, learn some of the intriguing history of sugaring, and examine some of the tools of the trade.

Also well known as a Christmas tree farm, The Rocks Estate will be open for tag-your-own Christmas tree on weekends from Sept. 24 through Oct. 16. Visitors may wander the neat rows of fir trees and select one to harvest for holiday trimming. Tagged trees may be cut from Nov. 19 through Dec. 24.

During tag-your-own weekends, the Marketplace at The Rocks and The Rocks farm store will be open for early holiday shopping. The Marketplace features a variety of items from local artisans, as well as several Fair Trade gifts. The farm store is brimming with jams and jellies, Rocks Estate t-shirts and mugs, holiday ornaments and decorations, and – of course – maple syrup made produced from our own sugar maple trees!

New Hampshire Maple Experience Returns in June!

Thanks to the hundreds of visitors who enjoyed our Maple Tours during the sugaring season! If you missed out, not to worry – the New Hampshire Maple Experience will return in June with tours for school groups, bus tours, and individuals.

While the sap only flows in the early days of spring, and maple syrup production generally ends in April, the New Hampshire Maple Experience allows visitors to enjoy and learn about sugaring from June through Columbus Day. Beyond the museum, where generations of sugaring tools are on view, along with descriptions of the history of maple sugaring, visitors during the summer and fall are treated to a virtual tour of the sugaring process in the sugar house.

The sugar house and the museum are snugged into one of many historic buildings on The Rocks Estate, owned by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. The turn-of-the-20^th Century Sawmill/Pigpen building was restored and remodeled specifically to house the New Hampshire Maple Experience.

For more about the summer and fall tours, please visit our website  and maple tours page.

A Tasty Tradition

Steam billowing from sugar houses tucked into the woods is a sure sign of spring in New Hampshire, where boiling the sap of sugar maple trees down to maple syrup and sugar has been a tradition in for centuries.

The New Hampshire Maple Experience takes visitors on a tour through time and taste, sharing the history and sweet secrets of making maple syrup.

There are two weekends of Maple Tours left this spring at The Rocks Estate. From tapping a tree to tasting the finished product, the tour is a sweet experience!

The famous Polly’s Pancake Parlor is also on hand, serving up piping hot pancakes, and our shop features New Hampshire made crafts and edibles.

A Maple Experience for Everyone

At the New Hampshire Maple Experience, there’s more to maple sugaring than tapping trees and boiling sap. Maple Tours here run weekends through April 3^rd. With a dash of history, a slice of how to, and a taste of sweetness, the tours offer fun and facts for all ages.

Kids love to help tap a tree and pat Mac and Duke – the huge Shire draft horses that pull wagons full of visitors around the historic and picturesque Rocks Estate. Prospective sugar makers learn the ins and outs of making maple syrup, from how to identify and properly tap sugar maples, to what it takes to boil sap into syrup. The interactive tour illustrates the centuries-old tradition of making maple syrup, and visitors see first-hand how the process has evolved with a walk through the Maple Museum. Of course, everyone loves the fresh donuts dipped in maple syrup, with a sour pickle on the side to counter the sweetness – all part of the tour!

The tour takes about two hours to complete, and you’ll want to spend some time browsing the small shop of New Hampshire-made crafts and maple goods – and to try some yummy pancakes made by the folks from the famous Polly’s Pancake Parlor in nearby Sugar Hill. This is one Experience you won’t want to miss!

Time to Make the Syrup!

The sap is running, and it's time to make this year's batch of yummy maple syrup at the New Hampshire Maple Experience.

Our Maple Tours run weekends through April 2. With hands-on learning, tasty treats, and unbeatable scenery, the tours are fun for maple lovers of all ages. Find out more at the New Hampshire Maple Experience.

Pictured here is fourth-generation sugar maker Brad Presby, hard at work boiling the sap down into syrup - and sharing some of the secrets of sugaring with Maple Tour visitors.

The Fleeting Sweetness of Spring

Most folks love the sweet taste of maple syrup. So why is it only produced during the short period when winter turns to spring? There are a few reasons:

·         Sugar makers rely on a combination of warm, sunny days and below-freezing nights to collect sap from sugar maple trees. The warmer days create pressure within the trees, causing sap to flow. If you tap a hole correctly into a tree, that sap will flow out the hole and into the metal bucket or plastic tubing sugarers use to collect it. Cool nights create suction within the trees, drawing water up through the roots and into the tree, thus replenishing the sap, so the whole process can be repeated.

·         While sugaring season typically lasts about six weeks, the sap doesn’t flow every day – the weather has to be just right. A quick rise in temperature during the day will enhance sap flow, but a cool day can slow it to a stop.

·         Once the leaves on the maples bud, the sap turns from sweet to bitter, and the sugar making season comes to a close.

Sugaring season is fleeting, but that makes it all the sweeter! To learn more about how maple syrup is made, check out the season’s maple tours at the New Hampshire Maple Experience. 



Maple Tours Start March 12th!

With the combination of cool nights and warm days, the sap is flowing here in the North Country of New Hampshire – and that means it’s maple sugaring time! Sugarers are looking to tap their sugar maple trees soon to start gathering the sweet sap to boil into maple syrup and sugar.

At the New Hampshire Maple Experience, we invite visitors from near and far to experience the joys of sugaring – and sample the finished product – during our Maple Tours. Participants will enjoy a horse-drawn wagon ride around the picturesque and historic Rocks Estate in Bethlehem, learn how to identify trees, help tap sugar maples, and visit the interactive New Hampshire Maple Experience museum and sugar house to see the process in action.

Tours run weekends through March, and the first weekend of April. To learn more about the New Hampshire Maple Experience and to reserve your Maple Experience Tour, please visit us online.

To see a video on how to tap a sugar maple, visit our YouTube page.

Sugaring Season Starts Soon!

Here in the North Country of New Hampshire, we’re still buried in several feet of snow and enjoying all the beauty of the mountains in winter. But the days are getting longer, and soon the daytime temperatures should be warm enough to get the sap flowing through the sugar maples. That means maple sugaring season is just around the corner!

At the New Hampshire Maple Experience, we’re gearing up for another busy spring of showcasing the sugaring process, from sap collection to the delectable finished product. Our Maple Tours start March 12 and run weekends through April 2 at the historic Rocks Estate.

To see the historic building that is home to the Maple Experience museum and sugar house, view our latest YouTube video.

Maple Syrup – It’s Not Just for Pancakes Anymore

Maple syrup is most often associated with breakfast, and it’s delicious poured over piping hot, right-off-the-griddle pancakes.

But since early New England settlers started collecting sap and boiling it down, maple syrup and sugar have been used in a plethora of recipes. Home bakers use it to sweeten bread, cookies, pies, and muffins. New Englanders have been known add maple syrup to the pot as they’re simmering baked beans. Maple syrup is used in marinades for meat, or baked into fresh vegetables. It’s even been used to flavor coffee and whiskey.

If you have a maple recipe that’s merits sharing – or want to see how others use maple syrup in their cooking – visit our recipe page.
Everyone who shares a recipe will be entered into a drawing to win a quart of delicious New Hampshire maple syrup on April 1!