Everyone loves maple syrup, and we've got some of the highest-quality producers in northern Ontario, one being Golden Treasure Maple Syrup Products in Trout Creek.
It's a 16,000-tap maple syrup operation in the heart of northern Ontario, covering over 200 hectares of forest. The business is owned by Melanie Murphy and her husband Harry Kessels.
The couple is back at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair with a booth at the Northern Ontario Pavilion.
Their maple sap is collected through pump stations from where it is transferred to the sugar shacks via pipeline for processing through a reverse osmosis system. The concentrate is boiled down to syrup through wood-fired, stainless steel evaporators which produce every grade: Golden, Amber, Dark, and Very Dark.
Their product is organically certified through ECOCERT, which guarantees and highlights the best environmentally friendly and socially conscious practices.
"We are maple syrup producers and we're mainly selling just the maple syrup, but there are other products that you can make like maple butter," Melanie Murphy told BayToday. "There's maple candies, there's maple sugar and it's all just maple syrup that's processed differently. So there's nothing added to the product to make it what it is, like our maple butter and our maple sugar and our maple syrup. It's all just maple syrup that's processed."
Murphy and Kessels were both working and living in Toronto and wondering what they wanted to do next.
"We wanted a change. Do we want to buy some place in Toronto or what do we want to do? So we were thinking about our future and then a smaller maple farm came up. So we bought that one and we did that for about five years and then a bigger farm came up and we decided that we were going to move there."
With the smaller farm, Murphy was hiring people to help during the season and she kept her job in Toronto.
"Then I left my job and we moved and that's how we got to the bigger farm. I love both places. Honestly, I really loved living in Toronto and I really love living. In Trout Creek."
Getting back to the bourbon theme, the couple heard it was being done by other farmers so they thought they'd give it a shot.
"Yeah. So we started doing our maple bourbon and there's no alcohol in it. What we do is we take empty bourbon barrels. We get them from Kentucky, the distilleries, Heaven Hill, and we put our dark maple syrup in it, and we let it sit for two years. It has a flavour and it's very popular. People seem to like it."
The Northern Pavilion has worked out well for the company, with samples being given out.
"We usually get very positive feedback. People love maple syrup. They're telling us it's a good, good product. So everyone's been very friendly and nice and we get a lot of questions about the whole process and that. I think there's more awareness of it."
Golden Treasure Maple Syrup Products presently has a booth at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto.
See related: Looking for probiotic-rich foods produced in North Bay? Just shut up and try it
The Fair runs until Sunday.
