To all our enthusiastic and loyal syrup fans - we have made the decision to let our trees and ourselves have a much-deserved sabbatical for the 2023 season.

We will sorely miss the steaming sugarhouse and the sweetness of spring, but we will return with renewed energy; a better operation; and hopefully a colder, more decisive winter. Until then, thank you for all your support through these years. Be well.

We boil down the springtime sap from 2500 maple trees living on our hillside in Weston, Vermont. All of our sap comes from one sugarbush, so the syrup tastes like Bobo’s Mountain: the soil, minerals, organic material, water and the trees. Bobo's Mountain Sugar is a wood-fired operation, and we use wood sourced either from our land or from our neighbors to ensure our fuel is local. 

It takes a lively mix of science and magic to make maple syrup, and we wait for those perfect early spring days where night-time temperatures are below freezing and day-time temperatures are above freezing. Then, as the sap is running, we collect it, light up a fire, and boil it down to syrup. Nothing is added and only water is removed. When the syrup comes off the pans and you have your first taste of Bobo's Mountain...perfection.  

One of the best things about sugaring is how we are held so close to the transition from winter to spring: the most powerful seasonal change in northern New England. We begin by fixing lines and tapping trees wearing snowshoes in deep-winter February. The first March boils are cold, quiet ones – wearing jackets and hats until the sugar house warms up enough to start shedding layers. Outside is still white and frozen solid. But by mid April, we’re boiling with the doors wide open, wearing T-shirts, and listening to the first sounds of spring: the water running down the hill, wood frogs singing in the pond, and Red Sox on the radio. After that, we are back in the woods in sneakers, swatting black flies, and watching the spring ephemeral flowers pop off the mountains. There is nothing subtle about this transition, and it's a gift to be pulled through it covered in sticky syrup.

VERMONT

Vermont is defined by the Green Mountains, an extension of the northern Appalachian Mountains which run north-south through the state. The name Vermont is said to come from Verts Monts, French for Green Mountains. Although Vermont has some significant granite deposits, the majority of the bedrock is calcium rich limestone and shale, a throwback to when much of the western part of the state was part of a giant inland ocean and all the little shelled critters died, sunk to the bottom and became the bedrock. Fortunately for us, sugar maples prefer a calcium-rich soil and its what gives Vermont is lush, mixed temperate forests.

WEST RIVER VALLEY

The West River valley runs through Weston with Markham and Terrible Mountains to the east and Holt and Peabody Mountains to the west. Even at its lowest points in the valley, the elevation is at about 1500 feet. One can find Bobo roaming the southern slope of Markham Mountain, which runs northwest/southeast and eventually goes into the adjacent town of Andover.

BOBO'S MOUNTAIN

Bobo’s Mountain is heavily forested in a mixed temperate deciduous forest with primary species including maples (sugar, red, striped), red oak, yellow and paper birch, balsam fir, spruce, and white pine. 10,000 years ago the receding glaciers deposited an unthinkable number of rocks and erratics on the land. The stonewalls which ride up and across the mountainside provide evidence for the early settlers plowing and farming the slopes. While most of the mountain is sloped and even truly steep, there are some naturally terraced areas providing sites for buildings, a pond, a natural vernal pool, and potential pasture.