Best New England Sugar Shacks & Maple Syrup Brands

Love everything maple? In our March/April cover feature, 8 Ways to Love Maple Season in New England, we rounded up a whole season’s worth of ways to make the most of New England’s sweetest time of year. Here’s a snapshot featuring some of our favorite year-round sugarhouses and maple syrup brands.

Best Year-Round New England Sugarhouses

Syrupy-sweet neighbors are a good thing … if you’re talking about New England sugarhouses that are open year-round. Below are a few of our tried-and-true favorites; for more options, check the websites of state maple producers.

Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks

You might be lucky enough to bump into seventh-generation maple sugar farmer Burr Morse on the job, but if not, look for his folksy memoirs in the gift shop. Do not leave without trying a maple creemee.

Ben’s Sugar Shack

Just a bucket’s toss from Yankee’s offices (about a dozen miles) is this classic country shack founded by maple prodigy Ben Fisk, who was winning awards for his syrup when he eas a teenager. 

North Hadley Sugar Shack

Launched in 1996 by Joe and Shelly Boisvert on family land, this sweet outpost now includes a farm stand, deli, and bakery. Look for its “sugarin’ breakfasts” during the holidays and in maple season. 

Lamothe’s Sugar House

From just seven taps in the 1970s, the Lamothe family has built the state’s largest maple syrup producer. Yet theirs is still the kind of place where you can see three generations bustling to a fro, learn a little syrup-making lore, and meet a friendly golden retriever or two. 

Best New England Maple Syrup Brands

While about 40 gallons of sap are needed to make a gallon of maple syrup, it takes a little something extra to make an award winner. Exactly what that something is, who can say—but try a maple syrup that’s brought home the gold, and you’ll get it.

Over the past decade, Vermont’s RUNAMOK MAPLE has raked in the accolades for its elevated organic syrups, including a 2018 SOFI Award (aka “the Oscars of specialty foods”) for its ginger root–infused maple syrup, which bested more than 2,650 product entries in its category. Here at Yankee, it was Runamok’s cardamom-infused syrup that won over our taste buds and earned a 2018 Editors’ Choice Food Award. (Oh, and Oprah loves them, too.) 

Here are some other New England champs to look for:

Fadden’s Sugar House

The seventh generation of Faddens claimed the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association’s trophy for the best maple syrup in the state last year—an award the family has already won seven times. 

Girard’s Sugarhouse

The golden syrup crafted by Mike Girard, whose ancestors once sugared in Quebec, beat out an international field for a blue ribbon at the 2019 North American Maple Syrup Council competition. 

Bragg Farm

This aptly named eighth-generation producer took 2019 Best in Show honors with its golden syrup at that venerable sugaring showdown in St. Albans, the Vermont Maple Festival. 

Spring Break

Still a relative newcomer, Spring Break marked its 20th anniversary with three first-place syrup wins and a Best in Show at the 2018 Maple Mania contest—then notched two more blue ribbons the following year. 

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 maple beverages, and where you can find history “untapped.”