Mill Creek Maple Syrup Selling 'Like Hotcakes'
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Phil Kidd knew the Mill Creek Maple syrup going on sale at his Youngstown Nation store would move fast, but voiced the hope Tuesday morning that he would have a decent inventory for a week or two.
It’s fair to say he underestimated the demand -- by a lot. Two hours after his store’s noon opening, he posted on Facebook, Kidd was sold out. “It speaks to the quality of the whole project,” he remarked.
That project is a collaboration between Mill Creek MetroParks and the Rocky Ridge Neighborhood Association to raise funds for the association and for the new playground at Mill Creek’s Wick Recreation Area. Representatives of the park district and the neighborhood association unveiled the syrup, the first to be produced by sap from Mill Creek Park trees, at a press event in the park’s Judge Morley Pavilion.
There the syrup from that inaugural batch was selling “like hotcakes,” quipped Paul Hagman, a Rocky Ridge member. At the event, about 50 bottles, at $12 apiece, were sold.
Members of the neighborhood association collected sap from a grove of maple trees in the park over a period of about eight weeks. The six tons of sap they gathered was then boiled down using a commercial evaporator the group purchased.
“It takes 30 to 50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. So at the end of the season, we had enough for just over 300 bottles of syrup that we’re selling to the public,” said John Slanina, president of the Rocky Ridge Neighborhood Association.
Sale proceeds will be split evenly between the association, which will use it for improvement projects such as signage and flowers within the Rocky Ridge neighborhood, and a new playground area being built in the Wick Recreation Area near the closed ice rink.
“The Wick Recreation Area is our premier facility for family recreational activities in the metroparks,” said Linda Kostka, Mill Creek MetroParks development and marketing director. Initial funding for the $840,000 playground project came from a $400,000 bequest from the estate of Juliana Kurinko, who left the money specifically to start the play area. “She was from the West Side and she used to bring her kids here to play at the Wick area,” she said.
The metroparks leveraged the $400,000 bequest with other private donations, but still needs to raise about $250,000 and continues to accept contributions for the project, Kostka reported. “We’re hoping that we get a lot of community support and have that done this summer because it’s going to be just phenomenal,” she said.
Slanina expects to raise between $5,000 and $6,000 from the sale of the syrup and a pair of associated auctions being conducted on the group’s website. One auction is for the first bottle of Mill Creek Maple ever produced; bidding for that bottle, which started at a $50 opening bid, stood at $100 as of this morning. The other auction is for a gourmet pancake meal for eight featuring buttermilk pancakes, paprika-rubbed bacon, eggs from Rocky Ridge chickens, honey from city bees and “multiple bottles of syrup,” he said. Bidding for that is at $300. Both auctions close at midnight May 15.
The joint effort has developed into “much more” than just the maple syrup project, Kostka said. “It’s a great partnership and a model for other neighborhood groups to get involved with the metroparks -- and us with them. We want to be good neighbors and we want to interact with all the neighborhood groups around this area,” she remarked.
Picking up two bottles at Tuesday morning’s event were Larisa Hull of Youngstown and her 19-month-old daughter, Anastasia. She said her family moved back to the West Side last summer.
Hull said the syrup is delicious after trying a sample at the event. “It’s actually thicker than your average naturally tapped maple syrup, and a little bit sweeter as well,” she said. “It’s really good.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our free daily email headlines and to our twice-monthly print edition.