March 23–24
Have you ever tried a Maple Breakfast Stout or a Maple cocktail—perhaps with Sapling Vermont Maple Rye, Maple Bourbon, or a Maple Liqueur? How about trying a slice of maple fennel sausage pizza? Maple Open House Weekend is Vermont’s most anticipated spring event and a celebration of the current season’s crop. When visiting sugar houses you can expect warm welcomes from their sugar maker hosts, eager to educate and share the process of making maple syrup from sap—an inside look at the hard work that goes into producing each jug of syrup. Traditional Open House activities include sampling syrup, tours of the woods, pancake breakfasts, horse-drawn sleigh rides, sugar-on-snow parties, and plenty of maple products to taste including maple donuts, maple cotton candy, and maple creemees.
Event weekend visitors can also expect to learn about the diversity of maple as an ingredient capitalizing on the flavor qualities of maple as a key component of recipes and menu items appearing throughout the weekend. You might plan to tour the state, to experience unique maple experiences around every corner, including a limited recently released hard cider: the “Tree Tapper,” made with maple syrup; or stop by a distillery featuring a full lineup of distilled spirits, all made using local Vermont maple syrup; or a brewery serving up their Ale Maple Ice Cream Floats made with Lake Champlain Chocolate’s vanilla ice cream and a maple syrup drizzle; and a Vermont brewery that always has their Maple Breakfast Stout on tap.
Maple Open House Weekend has more than 85 possible stops to get a taste of the sweet stuff. That’s a lot of territory—and a lot of syrup! For a map of all 85 possibilities, visit the Maple Sugar Makers at http://www.vermontmaple.org.
