Stay Awhile – with the N.H. Maple Experience!

Sugar maker Brad Presby in the sugar house.

It’s one of the most welcome rites of spring in northern New England – maple sugaring season! And The RocksEstate invites you to join us on the farm for a hands-on lesson in creating maple syrup during our New Hampshire Maple Experience, complete with a horse-drawn wagon ride through the picturesque estate, a visit to our sugar house, delectable cooking demonstrations by stellar chefs, and tasty treats galore!

Need more enticing? Why not make a weekend out of your Maple Experience! The Rocks is teaming up with a dozen local inns and hotels to offer discount packages during sugaring season. Ranging from quintessentially cozy New England inns to family friendly resorts, our list of lodging partners offers a place for every taste.

The New Hampshire Maple Experience will take place March 17, March 24-25, March 31-April 1, and April 7.

During your Maple visit, you’ll learn how to identify sugar maple trees, help tap a tree to collect the sap, see the workings of a modern collecting system up close, and visit our sugar house as fourth-generation sugar maker Brad Presby demonstrates the process of creating our region’s sweet nectar. It’s all capped off by a syrup tasting, complete with the traditional sour pickle and freshly made donut pairing.

We hope to see you this sugaring season at the New Hampshire Maple Experience!

40-to-1

That little one-quart jug of sweet maple syrup sitting on your breakfast table may seem simply sweet, but the process of turning sap into syrup is fairly involved….

It takes about 40 gallons of sap from a sugar maple tree to produce one gallon of maple syrup – that means ten gallons of sap goes into every quart jug you pour over your pancakes or waffles.

The sap-to-syrup process starts when sugar makers tap the trees, as the cold days of winter start to warm toward spring. The sap is collected in buckets or plastic tubing and transported to the sugar house. There, the clear sap (it looks like water when it flows from the tree) is boiled continuously until it thickens into syrup.

To find out more about how maple syrup is made, visit the New Hampshire Maple Experience site.