Published: March 10, 2008 11:57 am      

Making Maple Syrup

Business is sweet for Corriganville man

Leo Shinholt readily confirms the U.S. Department of Agriculture's stance that Maryland's production of maple syrup isn't worth noting in terms of abundance.

"That's true," said the owner of S&S Maple Camp in Corriganville, but the amount that is produced is done so "with some of the best sugar maples in the world."

Shinholt speaks with authority. After all, he's part owner of Maryland's "largest and most modern" maple camps. And his family's sugar maple trees help produce some awfully good maple products, from the traditional syrup to the more contemporary candies and cremes. The S&S Maple Camp brand is unique, Shinholt said, because it blends syrups from different trees from the family's handful of tree farms.

"Different trees, different soils," Shinholt said, helps make a different - better - product.

Shinholt and his family, including brothers Billy and Timmy Kennell and nephews Brent Willingham and Roy Douty, will tap between 10,000 and 12,000 maple trees in Allegany County and southern Pennsylvania. Through reverse osmosis, which separates the sap from water, raw sap is turned into a deliciously sweet maple product that can be used to flavor anything from coffee to oatmeal to peanut butter.

No one has forced Shinholt adding to his concoctions for sale. It's strictly a syrup, creme and confections business.

"I sell maple syrup," is how Shinholt wards off advances of so-called progress. His way, after all, has worked since 1968.

The product can, of course, stand by itself. A small group of visiting students from Frostburg State University's ethnobotany program saw firsthand how maple syrup is made and just how smooth the natural delights can be. The field trip resulted in a delicious discourse on the maple syrup production process.

Sunshine Brosi, FSU's ethnobotany program coordinator, said the students were there to participate in ethnographic field techniques and "gain basic information about the sugar maple's process."

With Shinholt's unassuming style, the students might not have expected his dry humor. He wore faded blue work pants and a paint-gray hooded sweat jacket over a durable blue-collared work shirt. His attire was topped with a camouflage baseball camp and brown work boots.

It takes one pint of fuel for the evaporator to make one gallon of syrup. Shinholt buys gasoline to run his machines in bulk. His last purchase was made when gas cost $2.70 per gallon.

"We got $3 fuel now," Shinholt said. "So it's got to be better."

Becky Shipe, an ethnobotany major from Garrett County in Brosi's class, called the entire process "very righteous" that makes a "beautiful product."

She also took note of Shinholt's struggles to make the farm work and said future consideration should be given to aiding farmers through grants or other remedies.

A number of Indian legends attempt to explain how the American Indians first discovered maple syrup. One story, published in 2002 in Mountain Discoveries Magazine, goes like this: A young warrior stuck a tomahawk into a maple tree. The sap flowed into a container that had been left at the base of the tree, and an Indian squaw, believing the clear liquid to be water, placed the container over the fire. The boiling resulted in a sweet flavor, and the production of maple syrup began.

But Shinholt doesn't necessarily buy into such stories.

"I don't know if that's what happened or not," he said, with a knowing twinkle of an eye and a wise-cracking grin. "I wasn't there."

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.