When we think about where maple syrup is made, we are typically thinking about Vermont and Quebec. It is true that Vermont is responsible for more than half of maple production in the United States. And Quebec supplies a whopping 72% of the world’s maple! However, the practice of making maple syrup is actually quite widespread. Where is maple made? In a surprising number of places, actually!
The US Maple Industry
The USDA issues crop reports for maple made in thirteen US states. Those reports show that for the last three years for which data is available, Vermont is the highest producing state. New York and Wisconsin follow in second and third place. These thirteen states aren’t the only ones producing maple for sale in the US., but they do have big enough industries to support producers’ associations that are active at the international level with either North American Maple Syrup Counsel, the International Maple Syurp Institute, or both! If you live in one of those states and make your own maple syrup, these state producers’ associations can be a great resource for you. They are Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Wisconsin and West Virginia. And in Canada, of course, Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia also have producers’ associations active at an international level.
The actual geography of where maple is made for sale is a bit broader, of course. Maple syrup is produced in many of the states that border the orange states, above: Charlie’s Sugar House in Coventry, Rhode Island, for example, and Kraus Farms in northern New Jersey. And, by virtue of the fact that maple syrup can actually be made using any maple trees and not just the sugar maple tree, the areas where maple syrup are being made are expanding. Neil’s Bigleaf Maple makes maple syrup from the bigleaf maple tree, for example, in Washington state. And some folks are working hard to develop a red maple syrup industry in southern New Jersey and the mid-atlantic. Will bigleaf maple syrup become an industry in the pacific northwest? Will red maple syrup take off in the mid-atlantic? That’s anyone’s guess. What we do know is that the demand is high for maple!
The Maple Hobby
Having been in the maple hobby supply business now since 2015, we can testify with confidence that the geography where people make maple syrup generally is much broader than this. In fact, people make maple syrup for sale, for subsistence and gifting, or just for fun, in all but ten US states! People make maple syrup from a variety of maple trees. In addition to the sugar maple, of course, we’ve heard from people who make syrup from red maple, silver maple, or norway maple all over the country, from bigleaf maple in the pacific northwest, from box elder in the northern plains, and from big tooth maple in the southwest.
What about you? Is your state on the maple map? What have we missed?