New England Maple Museum

Vermont [1] produces an estimated 500 million gallons of maple syrup each year—accounting for more than a third of the production of the entire country. And each one of those gallons of golden goodness takes 40 gallons of sugar sap to produce.

If you are beginning to doubt there are enough trees in the state to make that possible, check out the New England Maple Museum (Rte. 7, just north of Pittsford, 802/483-9414, www.maplemuseum.com [2], 10 a.m.–4 p.m. daily mid-Mar.–late May; 8:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. daily late May–Oct.; 10 a.m.–4 p.m. daily Nov.–late Dec., closed Jan.–Feb., $2.50 adults, $0.75 children) on the outskirts of Rutland [3]. It takes visitors inside the history and art of sugar maple sap.

One-hundred feet of murals depict the history of syrup-making, from the Native Americans who heated sugar maple logs over the fire to the smokestacks of modern syruping outfits. These are complemented by black-and-white photographs, antique taps and other sugaring artifacts, and an evaporation tank that runs all year long, or as the museum puts it, “even when the sap isn’t.”

And of course, there’s the gift shop, which provides free samples of different grades of syrup—though unfortunately no flapjacks to go with them.