The Sweet Smell of Maple in the Morning!

There is almost nothing better than the smell of walking into a sugar house and smelling boiling maple sap! The best thing after smelling it, is tasting it! Drizzling real maple syrup on the delicious pancakes and waffles that you will wake up to while staying at Hilltop House!

While you are here for a visit, check out some of the local Sugar Houses! Maple Weekend and the Sugaring Festival is coming up soon, and what better souvenirs to bring back to friends and relatives (and keep a tasty stash for yourself!) than good maple syrup and other maple goodies!

Annual Maple Sugaring Festival
March 4, 2017
11 a.m.-3 p.m. Adults $15, children $10.
The Institute for American Indian Studies (About 45 minutes from the Inn)
38 Curtis Rd. Washington, CT 06793
Enjoy an afternoon celebrating the taste of Maple Sugar. Enjoy pancakes, local maple syrup, coffee and more (served from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.), and learn how Native Americans traditionally made maple syrup. Learn about the technique of collecting sap and boiling it down into syrup, and its importance to Native American culture. Connecticut Valley Siberian Husky Club’s dog sledding and mushing demonstration from 1 p.m.-3 p.m.
For more information visit http://www.iaismuseum.org

Maple Syrup on Snow (Also called Sugar on Snow)

Soukup Farms (About 12 minutes from the Inn)
271 Halls Corners Rd., Dover Plains, New York
845-264-3137
Maple Weekend will be held on March 18th & 19th and March 25th & 26th from 10 to 4 each day at the sugarhouse. They will have ongoing tours and explanations of how they make maple syrup from tree to bottle. They will also be offering samples of all four grades of their maple syrup and will have it for sales as well!
https://www.facebook.com/events/428317390833536/

Soukup Farms is a third generation family farm, producing and selling pure New York Maple Syrup. It was started as a hobby in the early 1950’s and expanded to 800 taps in the 1990’s and today has more than 2,000 taps.
http://www.soukupfarms.com
https://www.facebook.com/SoukupFarms

Crown Maple (About 20 minutes from the Inn)
47 McCourt Road, Dover Plains NY 12522
845-877-0640
Winter Hours of Operation: Open Saturdays and Sundays: 10:00 am – 3:00 pm. Tours at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. The Crown Maple Estate will resume regular hours of 10:00 am – 5:00 pm on Saturday March 18th.

Celebrate New York State Maple Weekends at The Crown Maple Estate. They will be featuring complimentary tastings, maple inspired lunch, tree tapping demonstrations and more! Free admission.
The Crown Maple Estate is located on 800 acres at Madava Farms in New York. All products are certified-organic.
https://www.crownmaple.com/
https://www.facebook.com/crownmaple
https://twitter.com/crownmaple
https://www.instagram.com/crownmaple/
https://www.pinterest.com/crownmaple/

Some fun facts about maple syrup:
It takes 40 to 50 gallons of tree sap to make one gallon of syrup.
A tree takes about 40 years before it’s big enough to tap
A quarter-cup of maple syrup is high in minerals
Stored properly, a sealed container of maple syrup can keep for several years
If you put a glass of water and a glass of maple sap side by side, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
A gallon of maple syrup weighs 11 pounds
The sugar content of sap averages 2.5 percent; sugar content of maple syrup is at least 66 percent or more
Tapping does no permanent damage and only 10 percent of the sap is collected each year. Many maple trees have been tapped for 150 or more years.

Did you know what the different grades of maple syrup mean and what’s best used for?
• Light Amber or Fancy Grade has a mild maple taste and is made early in the season. This is considered best for fine maple candy.
• Medium Amber has a little more maple flavor and is made about mid-season.
• Dark Amber, although slightly darker and with a stronger maple flavor, is fast becoming a favored table syrup.

There are many additional sugar house around the Hudson Valley in NY and Litchfield County in CT, to find out more information please visit
http://www.upperhudsonmaple.com, http://www.nysmaple.com/ and http://www.ctmaple.org