December 17 is National Maple Syrup Day

According to Holiday Insights, December 17 is National Maple Syrup Day, but no one, not even industry experts, know much about this holiday. When contacted by phone, "Maple Syrup Digest" publisher Roy S. Hutchinson mentioned "Maple Sunday," a late winter event that originated in Maine and proved so popular that it expanded into Maple Weekend, but he hadn't heard anything about National Maple Syrup Day.

Even with the confusion over this holiday's origins, maple syrup is a tasty product that's still produced the old-fashioned way in many parts of the country.

Pure Maple Syrup Really is Pure

Ron Thomas, President of the Michigan Maple Syrup Association, said that to make pure maple syrup, a maple tree is tapped and then the sap is boiled down into syrup. "It's always in the spring when you make it. If it gets around 20 degrees that night and it gets around 40 to 45 degrees in the daytime, it will make the tree run sap. You collect that sap and, as soon as you possibly can, you boil that down into the syrup," Thomas said via telephone.

Making Maple Syrup Requires Good Timing

Thomas said that in Michigan, the maple tree sap runs anywhere starting in late February, but normally it begins in the heart of March. "It only goes for about two to three weeks, but when you get farther East and get up into Canada, Maine, New Hampshire, it starts early in February and runs until late March because the altitude is different there. You have more snow there and the snow holds the temperatures in that area," he said.

Thomas said that one maple tree, on an average year, will produce approximately one quart of syrup. "The sap is only good until the trees start to bud. If they bud out to where the leaves show out of the bud, it's no good anymore. There's quite an art to it. You catch it early when it starts to get to freezing and thawing and after it runs a two, three, four-week period, then you have to be concerned about the trees coming out of the dormant stage. When the buds start to pop up, it makes the syrup have a real rancid taste."

It Takes a Lot of Sap to Make Maple Syrup