MONTVILLE, Ohio – First-generation farmers Kevin and Morgan Holy, of Geauga County, didn’t initially set out to wrangle thousands of maple trees and harness the sap for syrup, but that’s just what happened during the 2012-2013 maple syrup season.

“It was 100 percent by accident, like all great farms start,” said Kevin, owner of Seldom Seen Farm.

They were members of the equine industry before making this sweet transition.

“We started out with 10 trees and a turkey fryer,” Kevin said. “Now, we have 5,000 trees, and this is a full-time career for us.”

Equine, not maple trees, were once their main concern. The farm name was named after a horse, “Seldom Seen,” who was ill and going into retirement. Kevin and Morgan purchased the property so the horse could live out his life peacefully.

“When we purchased our farm in 2008, we had no intention of making maple syrup, we were actually a livestock farm with horses, cows and chickens,” he said. “We tapped our first trees in 2013 strictly as a hobby with 10 trees and a turkey fryer. We boiled the sap on our kitchen stove. As we grew, we moved outside to a small evaporator and added trees each year in to the size of our current operation. It grew to roughly 1,000 trees on tubing over about 12 acres.”

That one-time hobby has turned itself into a career. The couple, along with children Chase and Cora, produce around 1,500 gallons of syrup per year, sourcing locally another 3,000-4,000 gallons.

In 2016, the couple began playing with the idea of aging maple syrup in used bourbon barrels to help give an enhanced flavor. That move helped skyrocket their business of bottling and selling their syrup, along with other maple edibles. Holy said the operation took a big jump in 2018 when they built a new sugarhouse and bought new equipment, among other upgrades.

“It’s been such a blessing for us,” he said, noting that all of his maple trees are just 10 minutes away from their home.

To this day they sell direct to consumers through their retail store, online and what they call “wholesale plus,” which includes local farmers markets. They are also part of the Ohio Maple Producers Association’s Maple Madness Tour, which is the first two weekends in March. That tour includes 52 producers from central to northeast Ohio.

“I’ve been helping friends and family produce maple syrup for nearly 25 years,” Holy said. “After school and on weekends I’d help local farms collect maple sap. We’ve been around maple syrup production our entire lives but never actually produced maple syrup ourselves, just spent time helping others.”

Then, in 2021 they won Grand Champion for their traditional maple syrup at the Geauga County Maple Festival and captured Grand Champion for their bourbon barrel aged maple syrup in 2022.

“We owe it to all the other producers who have helped us along the way for which I am forever grateful,” he said.

Today, the couple cover all aspects of this business, from production to bottling, marketing and bookkeeping. On top of their maple production, they also offer maple tubing installation and consultation services for other farmers whether they are established or just looking to get into the industry.

Doug and Ruth Welch are also “by accident” producers of maple syrup. Thirteen years ago, the Welches moved to a Shelby County, Ky., farm and asked a state forester to take a look at the timber on the property. While walking through the 66-acre wooded area, the forester asked Welch if he planned to make maple syrup.

“We hadn’t even given it a thought,” Welch said, “but that gave an idea. We tried it and we kept expanding and we loved it.”

Today, they tap about 150 trees at their Blues End Farm each winter.

Mining trees for liquid gold is unpredictable. Some years, Blues End only gets enough sap for five gallons of syrup. One year it produced 24 gallons.

“If you want a gallon of syrup, you need 50 gallons of sap,” Welch said.

Syrup produces know the sap produced depends on the weather. It takes freezing nights followed by warm days to get a good sap flow, meaning there’s about a six-week window for collecting the sap.

“We don’t try to live off our syrup production,” Welch said. “If we lose money, we still enjoy having maple syrup.”

The farm focuses on blueberries in the summer.

There are bigger maple syrup operations in both states, including some that use an elaborate system of plastic tubing and gravity to collect the sap in large tanks.

“People don’t think of maple syrup coming from Kentucky. They think it’s something from Vermont,” Welch said.

Maple syrup tapping season is under way and runs from February through April, depending on the weather and location. 

The United States produces roughly 4.2 million gallons of maple syrup each year, with Vermont producing more than half of it at 2.3 million gallons. The rest of the top five states are New York (846,000 gallons), Maine (701,000), Wisconsin (458,000) and Michigan (200,000).

Ohio ranks eighth, producing about 65,000 gallons of maple syrup each year. Indiana producers net 23,000 gallons on average, Iowans produce 4,300 gallons and Illinois produces 1,800 gallons.