ISSUE 40, HOLIDAY GIFTS, Part 1: Maple Spirits/Brandy
Maple Spirits/Brandy
Cheap refined sugar (loaf sugar) drove the fruit wine boom in 1820s America. Once Sapelo Island Georgia and Louisiana began churning out molasses and sugar after the introduction of the cold tolerant purple ribbon variety, prices dropped on the American market, and sugar became so cheap it could be used as the chemical engine driving fermentation in all the cherry, mulberry, dandelion, fig, and berry wines. So why were spirits not being distilled from that other famous early American source of sugar—maple? The idea of Maple brandy occurred to distillers early enough. Arthur Noble opened a distillery on Lake Ostego in 1791 with the intention of making these spirits. Judge William Cooper, founder of Cooperstown NY and father of novelist James Fennimore Cooper, announced a similar intention. Yet all found the expense and labor of extracting and making sugar so great that the maple distilleries did not flourish in New England; indeed it is difficult to find a record of any maple spirits coming to market until relatively recently in the U.S.
Now in the age of the artisanal distiller the idea has reemerged. Large scale quasi industrial sugaring in maple country [tubes running from a multitude of trees to the central sugar house], have made the production of maple sugar/syrup/molasses cheap enough and large scale enough for several producers to offer bottles under various names. But don’t be misled: the commonest maple rums are regular rum finished in maple syrup barrels for flavoring, or having syrup added to supply the sweet tincture of maple. A true maple spirit made wholly from maple syrup/sugar is a rare thing. The three listed below are the ones who most approach a pure maple brandy or spirit: no honey or brown sugar added to diminish expense, no adding maple syrup to base spirits to create a liqueur.
Tree Spirits Knotted Maple, Oakland Maine
Elm Brook Distillery Rail Dog Maple Spirit, East Fairfield Vermont
Vermont Spirits #14 Maple Spirit
Ohio Red Maple Spirits