MAINE, USA — Maine Maple Sunday Weekend has returned for its 40th year. Its a time when maple producers across the state offer maple syrup samples and demonstrations on how the maple magic is made.
More than 100 maple producers are participating in Maine Maple Sunday Weekend this year, including Nutkin Knoll Farm in Newburgh.
"I used to not like spring until we started doing this and now I love spring," Nancy Price, owner of Nutkin Knoll Farm, said.
Price said her farm offers a variety of different maple products to its customers.
"We use our maple syrup to make maple cotton candy, maple popcorn, maple peanuts, maple cream, maple candies," Price said.
There's also maple syrup-topped ice cream on the menu this weekend. Price said she and her husband started out as a Christmas tree farm, until they noticed they had quite a few maple trees on their property.
"Our neighbor taught how to tap trees and make maple syrup and we just got hooked," Price said.
"The process of just making maple syrup is kind of baffling," Ava Dowling, a worker at Nutkin Knoll Farm, said.
Dowling said this weekend and Christmas time are their two big events every year, but people come for the maple products year-round.
"Its just amazing how much sap goes into one gallon of maple syrup," Dowling said.
About 40 gallons of sap goes into making just one gallon of maple syrup. But the work is worth it when it can be used to create products like maple sugar.
"We take that [sugar] and mix it with either the oil that's going in the popcorn, or other granulated sugar that goes in the cotton candy," Dowling said.
"A lot of times when people think of maple syrup they think of pancakes," Price said.
But Price said the potential for using maple syrup in recipes is endless.
"I rarely use sugar anymore in any of my recipes its you know dressings or soups or anything that calls for sugar I just substitute maple," Price said.
Price added the syrup is appreciated by those from near and far.
"We get a lot of out of state visitors all year round who stop and want to buy some maple syrup to take home,"
Its a weekend to appreciate Maine's sweetest industry. For more information on participating sugar houses across the state, click here.