ICC mulls $35.5 million budget

By Melanie Lekocevic

Capital Region Independent Media

RAVENA — Ever wonder how all that maple-y goodness gets onto your pancakes?

The answer: From maple producers like Crosstown Maple, where it takes 60 gallons of sap to make a single gallon of the syrup that lands on your breakfast table.

Crosstown Maple is one of 27 maple producers in the Catskills, with 150 statewide, participating in two Maple Weekends in March.

Crosstown Maple is located at 533 Blodgett Hill Road.

The first Maple Weekend — held statewide every March — was held March 18 and 19, but there’s still time to catch the second weekend, on March 25 and 26.

Crosstown Maple, as a member of the New York State Maple Producers Association, is holding open houses on those days to bring the community in to see what maple production is all about.

Most maple producers are busiest in March, when they begin tapping the trees to begin the syrup-making process, but the harvest at Crosstown Maple is a bit different, owner Kevin Reinisch said.

“We are a little different — we are busier in early February than we are in March. We started tapping Feb. 2,” Reinisch said. “We go from tree to tree and drill a hole in the tree, then we put the tap in and using maple tubing, we collect it all in a vat. Then we drive up to the tanks and collect it.”

The raw sap is collected from three sites the company leases, totaling about 60 acres and 2,500 maple trees. But before it can be packaged as syrup, or any other maple product, the sap has to be processed through reverse osmosis, which removes the water and concentrates the sugar that is naturally found in the maple sap.

“To make syrup, we have to evaporate the water out of the sap,” Reinisch said. “The sap is only 2% sugar, so we have to get it to 66% sugar to make it legal as syrup. That’s why we boil it, to get the water out.”

During the open house on Saturday, Reinisch’s brother, Michael Reinisch, was helping make the syrup and preparing it for packaging.

“I am taking the final syrup, running it through a filter press, and then we will bottle it into kegs,” Michael Reinisch said.

Maple syrup is far from the only product the maple is used to produce, according to Kevin Reinisch.

“Besides our syrup, we make maple candies, maple sugar, we do three kinds of maple barbecue sauce, we have hot sauce, maple cream, cotton candy and donuts,” he said.

Kevin Reinisch got into the maple production business through a circuitous route.

“My son was 2 years old and we got a book from the library on sugaring, and we had some trees in the backyard — that’s how I got started,” Reinisch said. “We started really small and it’s grown since then. This is the 11th year since we started making syrup, but I wasn’t selling syrup until about year three when somebody said they would buy a quart. That’s how it got started.

In the first couple of years, Reinisch only made about 7 or 8 gallons of syrup a year, packaged in mason jars, and has grown the company since that time.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” Reinisch said. “I don’t think people realize we are the largest producer in Albany County. There’s a couple in the Berne area that are a little smaller than I am. I don’t think people realize we are as big as we are and that we do some of the things that we do here.”

Crosstown Maple’s products are available for purchase online at www.crosstownmaple.com; at Eck’s Farm Stand at 4 Marshall Road, Ravena; and at a roadside stand at 680 Elm Ave., Selkirk. Reinisch also participates in farmers markets at Coeymans Landing and in Delmar at 428 Kenwood Ave.

This is the 28th year that Maple Weekends have been held at maple producers around the state. New York is home to the largest resource of tappable maple trees in the country, with more than 2,000 maple sugar makers in the state, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“Maple syrup production is a New York state tradition that dates back more than four centuries, and the homegrown maple industry is a key part of our agritourism and economy,” Hochul said. “I’m proud to celebrate the 28th anniversary of ‘Maple Weekends,’ which also recognizes those who work hard to bring an ever-expanding variety of maple products from tree to table — keeping the maple industry a cherished part of our state’s heritage and economy.”

In 2022, the state’s maple producers set a new record, producing 845,000 gallons of maple syrup.