For over 20 years, the Schanz family has been making maple syrup here on our 50 acres of hardwood forest in Western Maine. We’ve done it the old-fashioned way, with buckets instead of sap lines, and a homemade barrel stove instead of an evaporator. The entire family, spanning three generations, pitched in to help haul sap, lug wood, and boil syrup.

    We enjoyed making maple syrup for ourselves so much that we always talked about how cool it would be to make it for others. For the last few years, we’ve all been working hard to make that dream a reality. We spent the entire summer of 2018 building our sugarshed, by far the most massive family project we’ve ever taken on! We thinned our sugarbush, bought a new evaporator, upgraded to sap lines over buckets, and got our maple producers' license. Throughout the entire process, we’ve researched, experimented, and learned so much. Now we can’t wait to see where this journey takes us as we pursue our passion for making real Maine maple syrup.