Pure Vermont Maple Syrup from Strong Family Maple

The Strong Family has been making maple syrup at their 350-acre property in Orange, Vermont since 1980 when the parents of the current generation of sugarmakers started tapping trees along the road past their house. David and four of his siblings and their spouses are continuing a family tradition of sugarmaking that can be traced back to Lewis Wright, their grandmother’s grandfather, who sugared in Dixville, Quebec, some 80 miles north of Orange.

The picture below is of the family sugarhouse in Canada. That looks like quite a sugar party! 

The Strong’s family farm sits at the end of a dirt road. The house is a classic brick farmhouse built in the 1840s when dairy farms dotted the Vermont hills. Hay, timber, and maple syrup are the only crops now. They currently tap 1200 trees and fuel their evaporator with firewood they harvest from their land. After making their syrup in their sugarhouse in the woods for 33 years, they shifted to a new and bigger one they built within sight of their farmhouse in 2017.  While they have adopted several modern conveniences over the years, the Strongs still boil down sap the way their great-grandparents did back in 1889.