Notable New England Boozy Maple Brands

In our March/April cover feature, 8 Ways to Love Maple Season in New England, writer Jolyon Helterman rounded up a tempting array of maple-infused New England-made beverages. Click through to check out the full list, but in the spirit of early-spring celebration, here are five boozy highlights. Cheers!

Notable New England Boozy Maple Brands

Forest Gold Maple Wine (5 stars) Aaronap Cellars, Westford, MA

Imagine a cartoon chase sequence involving, I dunno, Bugs Bunny frantically feeding pineapple upside-down cakes into the hopper end of a lurching contraption that, for whatever reason, distills all that butter-caramel-edged, dry-heat-burnished tropical-fruit intensity and juiciness into something way more delicate: perchance, a bead of clove-kissed nectar daubed from a honeysuckle’s swollen stigma (but you know, enough for a 375 mL bottle). Wine maker Noel Powell coaxes as much nuance from Berkshire maples as some zillion-dollar French dessert wines get from pedigreed late-harvest grapes, and the result is especially good with aged cheddar. 

Tree Tapper Maple Cider (4 stars) Citizen Cider, Burlington, VT

Do you taste it? I taste it! I mean, I think I taste something vaguely mapley, when I press my tongue into the roof of my mouth, exhale through my nose, and stand in the parking lot of a busy pancake house. Jokes aside, Citizen makes an impressive line of hard ciders, and this variant sweetened with syrup from Runamok Maple is no exception—though you may be hard-pressed to guess its tree-tapped provenance from taste alone. 

Vermont Ice Maple Créme (4 stars) Boyden Valley Winery & Spirits, Cambridge, VT

This balanced mix of French oak–aged apple ice cider, apple brandy, fresh cream, and organic maple syrup made on-premises is a cut above other cream liqueurs I’ve tried, with enough layers of complexity to serve neat or chilled. Or poured over vanilla ice cream. Or coffee ice cream. Or, like, a banana split–style sundae with both flavors, and … and, anyway. You get the gist. boydenvalley.com

Maple Cream Liqueur (3 stars) Boston Harbor Distillery, Boston, MA

Rum cream, the Caribbean answer to Baileys, typically gets its sugary richness from sweetened condensed milk. This New England spin instead leaves the dessert-ing to Vermont syrup, blending it with rum-spiked Wisconsin cream at just the right strength to transform a hot mug of coffee into an après-ski (or après-breakfast) pick-me-up. For a straight-up sipper, though, the flavor profile is a tad too two-dimensional.  

Maple Whisky (2 stars) Cabin Fever, Chester, NH

Aged for three years in a non-charred barrel, then infused with grade B Vermont dark maple syrup, this flavored Canadian whiskey probably has too much burnt sugar, vanilla, and butterscotch on the nose and the finish for serious whiskey fans. But it’s probably just what the doctor ordered for a hot toddy or high-octane eggnog.  

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Want More Maple?

Don’t miss 8 Ways to Make the Most of Maple Season in New England! From Connecticut to Quebec, drink in the sweetest time of the year with the help of our tasty to-do list, including top maple celebrations, our favorite year-round sugarhouses, and where you can find history “untapped.”

How About More Maple Cocktails?

Don’t miss these four delicious Maple Syrup Cocktail Recipes

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