Our Farm
True to its name, Deep Mountain Maple is a beautiful forest of sugar maple trees nestled deep in the rolling hills of West Glover, Vermont, where the eastern slopes of the Green Mountain range give way to the foothills of the White Mountains to the east. The Sugarbush is an old one, and it had been in continuous operation for many decades when Howard and Stephan Cantor bought the land in 1986 and made their first crop of syrup there. The Cantors had sugared on a friend’s land the previous year and, finding it a slightly addictive spring vocation, they decided they wanted to commit to a future in sugaring and to having their own operation.
Howard and Stephan sold their first harvest at the Union Square Greenmarket in 1985. In the spring of 1986 they came to Union Square with their own Deep Mountain Maple Syrup, and they have been adding sweetness to the lives of their New York customers at the NYC Greeenmarkets ever since.
Our Philosophy
We are guided by the long-evolving traditions of maple syrup, and by its seasonality. The maple syrup harvest happens as the winter melts into spring, and the days begin to warm above freezing. Sugaring is a bridge from the dark frozen months to the bright sunlight and warmer temperatures that chase away the snow to expose the green shoots and early, delicate flowers that proclaim, Spring is Coming! As we boil the sweet maple sap over a wood fire we continue a practice that people have been engaging in for at least hundreds if not thousands of years, creating the liquid gold we call maple syrup.
We have great respect for the Abenaki, Mohawk and other Northeastern indigenous people who first developed a process for transforming maple sap into a delicious, nutritious and useful food. Maple sugaring figures importantly in the spirituality and histories of these people, and in their relationship to the seasonal changes in the natural world. We seek to make choices that honor this wisdom and respect the inherent sustainability of maple sugaring.
The production of maple syrup can be a beautifully complete agricultural cycle, and maple trees, when properly managed, can remain productive for one hundred years or more.
One Tap
We manage our trees using a “one-tap” policy; that is, virtually all of our trees receive only one tap, or spout, in a given season. Done responsibly, tapping does not harm the trees at all. A tap hole begins to heal and close over as soon as the season ends.
Our maple syrup is made without pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers of any kind. Fairly constant, generous rain and snowfall throughout the year; followed by deep, long winters that give way to the bright sun of early spring; and, above all, the rich and rocky soil that sugar maples love; these characteristics of our farm in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom combine to produce maple syrup that is unsurpassed in flavor and quality.
In all that we do, we seek to manage the forest in a way that sustains it, and the future of maple sugaring.
