Sweet Season ahead as sites gear up for Maple Weekends
It will soon be 2020 Maple Weekends time.
Preparations are already underway for March 21-22 and March 28-29, 2020 Maple Weekend open house events at 18 sites in Oneida, Jefferson, Lewis and Oswego counties and at the International Maple Museum.
A wide array of maple products from maple syrup, maple sugarcakes, and maple cream to maple floss, maple brown sugar, maple milk and more sweet treats will be available for purchase. Check details and directions at www.
mapleweekend.com for sites that may be open only on Saturdays or one of the two weekends.
Visitors to sugarhouses in this northern region of the state will meet sugarmakers, enjoy sap-to-syrup tours, taste samples, and see how sap is boiled into syrup at ultramodern sugarhouses as well as one making maple for 99 years and one boiling sap since 1844.
The participating sites, stretching from the foothills of the Adirondack mountains to Black River Bay, and Tug Hill to areas named for the steam engine inventor, a Central American country, and a Carthaginian Empire hero; and into the Mohawk Valley; represent more than 176 years of maple sugaring.
A new participant in the northern region is Silver Sap Maple in New Bremen, near Lowville in Lewis County.
The Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Future Farmers of America (FFA) will host its annual Maple Weekend celebrations, including its Maple Weekend Pancake Breakfast, which will be held all four days of the two Maple Weekends from 7:30 a.
m. to noon at VVS High School, 5275 Route 31, Verona.
The 2020 Maple Weekend sites in Oneida, Jefferson, Lewis and Oswego counties are:
ONEIDA COUNTY
Clinton: Shaw’s Maple Products, 7945 Maxwell Road, 315-725-0547. Watch boiling over a traditional wood fire-fired evaporator.
Free tours and samples.
New Hartford: Tibbitts Maple, 8874 Tibbitts Road, 315-793-3114.
Four generations of sugarmakers and growing.
Verona: V-V-S FFA Maple Market, Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School, 5275 State Route 31, 315-829-7462.
Free wagon rides and guided tour by FFA members.
LEWIS COUNTY
Castorland: Swiss’er Sweet Maple, 6242 Swiss Road, 315-346-1034.
See and taste a Zehr family tradition from their trees to your table.
Croghan: International Maple Museum, 9756 Route 812, 315-346-1107.
Pancake breakfast all four days 7 a.m.
to noon.
Croghan: Moser’s Maple, 9605 Croghan Reservoir Road, 315-486-7933.
Where modern syrup production meets traditional candy making.
Croghan: Pierce’s Sugar Spigot, 11603 Route 812, 315-543-2980.
See how boiling raw sap from maple trees becomes sweet maple syrup.
Croghan: Only on March 21-22: Sterling Valley Maple, 9610 Croghan Reservoir Road, 315-586-2599.
Three generations making quality maple products.
Croghan: Yancey’s Sugarbush, 7981 Long Pond Road, 315-346-6356.
Draft horse maple production since 1844.
New Bremen/Lowville: Only on March 21-22: Silver Sap Maple, 8720 Mattis Road, 315-221-0510.
Visit a quaint, yet modern maple syrup operation.
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