Birch Syrup!

This is the first year I’ve collected birch sap and boiled it down into syrup, and the whole process has felt a bit like stepping back in time.

From maple to birch

Birch syrup season begins immediately after maple season winds down. Once both days and nights are staying above freezing, the birch sap starts to move, signaling it’s time to tap. The window is short—typically just 2–3 weeks—before the sap changes. As the season ends, the sap is known to become bitter, a pattern that echoes what happens with maple sap as well.

What I plan to make

Historically, birch sap was turned into birch beer, a lightly fermented, aromatic drink. I’m tempted to follow that tradition someday, but this year I have other plans. I’ll probably use the syrup to make some fancy cocktails for my supper club. If I’m able to collect enough, I may experiment with kegging it and carbonating it into a small-batch soda.

The aspirin question

Birch is known to contain methyl salicylate, the compound that gives it a wintergreen aroma and provides anti-inflammatory effects. This molecule is closely related to the precursor of aspirin, which raised an important question for me: was I concentrating this substance in my syrup and unintentionally making a sort of “super aspirin”? Historically, birch products have been consumed without issue, so I suspected the risk was low, but I like to do my due diligence whenever I’m working with unfamiliar substances I plan to ingest. After looking into it, I was pleased to learn that the amount of methyl salicylate present in birch syrup is negligible.

Learning from the first tappers

The Native peoples of this region tapped birch trees for medicinal uses and for flavoring, though maple trees were their primary source for sugar and syrup. Their method of “tapping” looked very different from today’s tidy plastic spiles and tubing. They would cut a large gash into the tree with an axe, then collect the sap in birch bark vessels before cooking it down into sugar. Working with birch sap now, even using modern tools, feels like a small way of participating in that much older conversation between people and trees.

Remembering our permeability

Spending time tapping trees, hauling sap, and tending the boil has reminded me how connected we are to the living world around us. It’s good to remember that we are part of the environment, not separate from it. The skin that seems to divide us from our surroundings is thinner than we like to think—we’re permeable. The more often we remember that permeability, the more carefully and respectfully we’re likely to treat the environment that sustains us.