Maple season is just around the corner. After a winter of sugar and red maple trees (Acer saccharum and Acer rubrum) storing their sugary sap in their roots, they will soon be pumping their stored sap up through their sapwood to help the tree to grow this coming spring. When the days are warm and the nights are below freezing, we can collect a small amount of the trees’ sap in order to cook it down into delicious syrup.
Just as planting seeds for the start of the gardening season leads to daydreaming about recipes to use with the harvest, the start of maple season makes one’s mouth water thinking about all the ways to sweeten dishes with maple syrup. Maple syrup shines on pancakes and waffles, but it has so many more uses: salad dressings, glaze for roasted veggies, sweetener for one’s morning coffee, or various maple baked goods to name a few.
A favorite and go-to recipe when we need a simple, refreshing drink at Prescott Farm is maple lemonade. Not only is it more delicious than regular lemonade, it is much easier to make. Your guests will think otherwise, so it is up to you if you want to divulge that your special drink was actually a time saver. With normal lemonade, you need to make a syrup that involves dissolving the sugar in water. It then needs to cool before enjoying. Because maple syrup is already a syrup, you can skip the heating step and simply mix it with water and lemon juice. During maple season, I like to replace the water in the recipe with maple sap. While it likely does not add much in the way of flavor compared to the more concentrated maple syrup, it does add one more homemade element. This is especially exciting for any kids involved so they can get a little quicker gratification from the sap they have collected before the long process of boiling it down.
Our recipe for maple lemonade includes a simple version for a quick drink as well as some variations to add additional flavor from your garden or pantry. This recipe can also be easily scaled for larger or smaller batches.
Maple Lemonade Recipe
Yields: 1 to 1¼ quarts
Time: 10 minutes (24+ hours if adding additional flavors)
Ingredients:
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 3-4 lemons)
3-4 cups cold water or fresh maple sap
Optional: Dried lavender flowers, fresh mint, ginger, or basil
Directions:
Squeeze lemons into a large or pitcher.
Add maple syrup and 3 cups of water or sap to the pitcher.Mix until all ingredients are combined.
Taste the lemonade and add up to 1 cup more of water depending on desired sweetness level.
If not adding any optional ingredients, refrigerate or add ice to further chill. The lemonade is ready to serve immediately.
If adding optional ingredients, add at the end and allow the lemonade to sit in the refrigerator for as little as 4 hours or up to 24 hours for maximum flavor.
Variations and Tips:
Experiment with different grades of maple syrup. Amber will give your lemonade a robust maple flavor while balancing out any other flavors you add. Dark and Very Dark will provide a strong, maple-forward flavor. We find that Golden is too delicate of a flavor for this recipe.
If you have any staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) nearby that still has its red seed clusters on it, you can replace some or all of the lemon juice with sumac’s tart flavor. Simply cut off the flower clusters and rinse off any unwanted debris. Soak the sumac seeds in water or maple sap for a few hours to a few days. Strain out the flowers before adding the rest of the ingredients.
Prescott Farm runs maple programs from mid-February through the month of March. Click here to learn more about our upcoming Tap into Maple programs.