After four days of de minimus flow, the cold weather descended on our region and dropped 7" of heavy snow.  This will add further moisture and insulate the ground, which often prolongs the maple syrup season.

The frost depth is 26" at the Chanhassen Weather Center (7 miles away), so the largest flows will arrive as the frost dissipates.

Next week a warmup arrives, and hopefully, will deliver our first significant sap flows.

Temperatures climbed into the mid-40's  by noon on February 27th.

As the new releaser and fittings were assembled deep in the woods at our collection tank, we observed the first sap flow of the season. This is a full two weeks later than the 2017 season, but more typical of our average start. The flow was insufficient to even consider processing, but enough to declare "game on" for the new syrup season. The weather looks very favorable for this next next week. We anticipate making syrup in the next few days, but Mother Nature always rules.

Somerskogen Sugarbush has begun a joint venture with Tom Slattery of JJ's Wine, Spirits & Cigars in Sioux Falls, SD. http://siouxfallswine.com

Tom found our business via a Google search for maple syrup producers and gave us a call. 

Along with his wife, Jean, Tom brought up a 53 gallon oak barrel that had just been emptied of Buffalo Trace bourbon, aged for 9 years. We did a taste test of various grade syrups to identify which barrel of our maple syrup would incorporate the bourbon oak flavor as the syrup aged.  We settled on the Amber Rich grade as the best choice. 

I tasted a sample at 2 months of aging, and this is going to be a terrific product! The syrup will be bottled in a 375ml unique Nordic bottle - more on this in a future post.   The bourbon barrel aged maple syrup should be ready in a couple more months, so again, . . . . we wait with anticipation!

Check back frequently to see what is happening in the sugarbush!