Maple syrup-makers strike gold

FAIRFIELD, Vt. -- The spring sun is shining and billows of steam are rising from the chimneys at Tom and Cecile Branon's sugarhouse, set on a rise above acres of maple trees. The scent of maple syrup is strong enough to make your mouth water.

The price is high enough to bring tears to your eyes.

Sugaring season in Vermont is going full blast, and the price of the amber syrup that turns pancakes from batter to best is at a record high because of limited supplies. That has put Vermont's 2,000 or so sugar-makers on the right side of the supply-and-demand equation.

"It's just a good time to make maple," says Tom Branon, who hopes to produce 30,000 gallons this year. "Every backyard sugar-maker who can is doing it."

Buying less this year

Hundreds of people visit Vermont sugarhouses during the six-week season to see clear, watery tree sap boiled into sweet amber syrup. Vermont leads the nation in syrup production: about 500,000 gallons last year, according to the University of Vermont Proctor Maple Research Center.

But this year, customers pinched by the recession are buying smaller quantities, sugar-makers say.

In 2007, a gallon of Vermont maple syrup cost an average of $35, according to Department of Agriculture statistics. This year, the price is $45 a gallon at Branon Family Maple Farms — and that's the low end.

The Vermont Maple Outlet in Jeffersonville sells gallons for $76.95. F.H. Gillingham's, a store in Woodstock that also sells online, charges $80 a gallon — up from $60 last year.

Canada's huge supply of surplus syrup has been drained after production dropped 30% below average last year, the second poor year in a row.

"It was very cold, and suddenly, too warm. Spring didn't occur," says Simon Trepanier of the Federation of Quebec Maple Producers.

The result: "There's just not a lot of syrup out there," says Bernie Comeau, who runs Comeau Family Sugarhouse with his wife, Ann, in Williston.

Demand for syrup has been sweetened by consumer interest in natural and organic products and in buying locally-made food, says Catherine Stevens of the Vermont Maple Foundation. The popularity of the Master Cleanse diet — a fasting regimen popularized by the singer Beyoncé that includes drinking water flavored with maple syrup — doesn't hurt.