Pure Maple Syrup

I've been reading a book this week about a fictional family that lived in rural Pennsylvania before the Civil War. On their farm they have a grove of sugar maple trees which they tap every spring to get sap which they then boil down to get maple syrup. It's quite a process, they have to watch the weather & temperature closely, and tap the trees at just the right time to get an optimum, high quality flow.

This got me thinking... we have sugar maple trees in Utah, why don't people tap them for maple syrup? This lead me to an article in the Deseret News from 2005, written by Larry Sagers. In the article, he talks about the bigtooth maple which is native to Utah. The tree goes by many different names depending where it grows. These include lost maple, sabinal maple, Western sugar maple, Uvalde bigtooth maple, canyon maple, Southwestern bigtooth maple, plateau bigtooth maple and limerock maple.

Because the bigtooth maple is closely related to the sugar maple, it was a source of sugar and syrup for the early pioneers, who supposed this tree would be as valuable as the trees they had on their farms back east. But it never had the cash value of the sugar maple.

It takes 40 gallons of sugar maple sap to make one gallon of syrup. bigtooth maple sap is much less concentrated; it takes 160 gallons of sap to get one gallon of syrup. That's why the industry never thrived here.


This bigtooth maple is a broadleaf tree with a spreading, rounded crown. Its height will average about 35 feet, and the trunk diameter averages 9 inches at maturity. Sugar maples on the other hand are about four times that size.

Although I've never purchased it, you can buy a pure maple syrup at several local grocery stores that is called 'Land of Joseph' Maple Syrup. It is made in Sharon Vt. I've never had a desire to purchase it. But after reading about it, I now feel a connection and would like to try some...

Land of Joseph Maple Syrup, of Sharon, Vt., boasts U.S. Grade A pure New England maple syrup with a bit of a Utah connection. John Lefgren, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, bought 10 acres of land for a family retreat near the birthplace and memorial for the church's first president, Joseph Smith. Over the years, the retreat became a bed and breakfast and then a gift shop. He buys the syrup from local farmers who have been producing it for generations.

The Utah connection? "The simple fact is there are a lot of Mormons in Utah, and there's a very clear story that connects maple syrup to the Smith family." He points out that in her history, Lucy Mack Smith wrote about making maple sugar "of which we averaged one thousand pounds per year."

To give an idea of the labor involved, Lefgren calculates that the Smith family would have to tap 500 trees, collect 60,000 pounds of sap and burn 10,000 pounds of wood to boil down the liquid.

OK. After reading all this, I decided I need to become a pure maple syrup connoisseur. Sadly, I only have one bottle of pure (all natural) maple syrup in my cupboard at the moment. The label says that it is 'grade A dark amber'. It's in a small bottle that is about the size flask (I'm sure I look funny taking sips from it). It is indeed very tasty, with a darker taste. I'll have to buy some other brands so I have something to compare it to.