LIMA — Cindy Newman drove from New Bremen to see how maple syrup is made beginning right at the tree during the 24th Maple Syrup Festival held Saturday.
“It’s just really interesting that they show you how it’s done,” Newman said at the end of the tour where people get to taste pure maple syrup.
Newman, her husband, and great-niece and -nephew, walked through the half-mile course in a guided tour listening to guides and re-enactors explain the process and how really much hasn’t changed through the years.
Chris Fetzer, a volunteer coordinator, said it’s an educational opportunity mixed with history and live demonstrations to show people how maple syrup is made starting at the tree.
“We start the walk with the Native Americans to the pioneers and up to current days where they use tubing and plastic bags,” Fetzer said.
There are seven stops on the tour held at the Johnny Appleseed Metropolitan Park District’s McLean Teddy Bear Park on North Dixie Highway.
In one stop, re-enactors are dressed up as 1800s pioneers cooking sap down to syrup in a cast iron kettle. At another stop, people learn about the maple tree and the science behind it.
“We talk about why the sap flows at this time of year and no other time,” Fetzer said.
At the end of the tour, people can buy pure maple syrup, not the artificial kind sold in many stores. A couple of hundred people take the tour during each festival.
Pure maple syrup is expensive, approaching $50 a gallon. Fetzer said it takes 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup.
“That’s why maple syrup is so expensive because it’s so labor intensive,” she said.
Volunteer Dave Betts was showing and explaining a modern process of boiling sap that has been around for years.
“There are a lot more modern ways but this is still around,” Betts said.
In the process Betts demonstrated, there was a series of reservoirs in which sap is boiled to the final product. When it’s done the only thing left is filtering the sand out and the only thing remaining is pure maple syrup, Betts said.
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