HINTON, WV (WOAY) – Sweet maple sap is currently waiting in the trees of one Appalachian forest, preparing for two West Virginia producers to come and collect it in the early spring.
If you drive up Brooks Mountain in Hinton a ways, you will come across these professional syrup producers, known as Moonstruck Maple.
Boasting an over 1,000 tap industry, Moonstruck Maple was inspired to start producing and bottling this natural Appalachian syrup here because of the deep tradition it’s so rooted within.
“There are quite a few producers of maple syrup in West Virginia, we are certainly not the first, but we really enjoy doing it, it’s a really nice community of maple syrup producers, everyone’s really nice and it’s just a very friendly atmosphere,” says Co-owner and manager of Moonstruck Maple, Alisha Segars.
The sap runs until about mid-March before they collect it, process it into syrup, and filter it out.
While they are currently operating with approximately 1,100 trees, they plan to add about 500 more to the business.
After it gets produced and bottled, Moonstruck Maple shares it with the community by way of stores and various festivals, like Hinton Railroad Days and the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant.
“We started in the winter of 2017, we built it from the ground up, our family did, and have just had a great time doing it,” she says. “We’re not really traditional farmers, so we went to a class that future generations and the state of West Virginia put on and we said we could do this,” Segars adds.
They will also be host to two open houses coming up on February 18 and March 18 as part of West Virginia Maple Days.
