Great local sugarhouse selling maple syrup. Friendly service, good people. Happy to support and buy local.

The Durham Sugarhouse is a sugar shack that opened in Durham, Connecticut in 2002. It was founded by husband and wife Russ and Leslie Hassmann. Russ works as the CEO of a successful sign manufacturing company. While vacationing in Vermont, the Hussmanns stopped at a country store to get some ice cream and they noticed some maple syrup-making supplies for sale. Russ decided to take up maple syrup-making as a fun hobby. He bought six taps and a 'how-to' book. Maple sap is made up of about 2% sugar and must be boiled down to at least 66% sugar content to officially be considered maple syrup. In their first year, the Hassmanns boiled the sap on their home stove. Today they have a 12'x20' sugarhouse on their property with 750 maple taps on vacuum. My family and I recently visited the Durham Sugarhouse when we happened to run out of syrup at home. We love to support local businesses and decided to check out the place. The Hassmanns' property looks like a spiderweb with thousands of feet of plastic tubing connecting the sugar maples surrounding their house. Some of the trees even belong to their neighbors, who don't mind the Hassmanns using them for syrup. We were met by Leslie Hassmann who was very friendly and told us all about their syrup operation. Traditionally the syrup operation lasts from mid-February to the end of March, but changes in temperature can affect the start time. Maple syrup can be produced when overnight temperatures dip below 25° and daytime temperatures reach 40°. 2023's milder winter allowed the Hussmanns to begin syrup-making on January 23rd. The first syrup batch of the season is very light in color. The batches continue to get darker throughout the season. Each batch is labeled by number; some people prefer lighter-colored syrup while others prefer the darker stuff. We sampled a few different batches and decided to purchase a quart of Batch #9. It is absolutely delicious and so far we've enjoyed it with pancakes and French toast! We look forward to returning to Durham Sugarhouse the next time we need more syrup! read more

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Excellent syrup! We stopped by on Small Business Saturday. We sampled three different batches and selected our favorite. We can't wait to use it on our pancakes and waffles! read more

A great place to visit for a quick afternoon outing. We began by tasting 3 different types of syrups, all from the same trees. The owners were very friendly and answered all questions we had. We went with another family and both families purchased syrup. It was definitely worth the trip! read more