For a very few weeks in early Spring, the sweet sap of the Sugar Maple can be tapped and boiled down into pure golden maple syrup. For those few weeks the clear crisp air in areas near sugar houses is permeated with the wonderful aroma of the boiling sap and it seems life just couldn't be any sweeter! It takes 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of pure maple syrup, but it's well worth the effort and once you've had "the real thing" there's no turning back to those maple flavored corn syrup substitutes!