DeLoughary's Sugar Bush - Pure Maple Syrup, Maple Cream and Maple Mustard

DeLoughary's Sugar Bush began making Pure Maple Syrup for sale in 1976. They bought their first real evaporator, a used 6' x 16' Vermont unit with drop flues. They bought a set of Waterloo raised flue pans soon after when the first ones rusted out. In 1986, they sold that unit and bought a new Small Brothers 6' x 18' stainless steel unit. They put it in the new Sugar House they had built on 80 acres one mile west of their home.

Terry DeLoughary stands by the bottling machine.

Up to this time, Terry DeLoughary had been struggling to sell Maple Syrup to a neighborhood where, quite frankly, too many people were making it. Each year, Terry would put half or more of his crop into barrels and take it to a dealer who would give him hardly enough to meet the cost of making it. On one of those trips, Terry stopped at a store that was run by the dealer (a retail outlet we would like to call a tourist trap). He saw many fancy containers of Maple Syrup, Maple Sugar, and Maple Candy, along with cheese, sausage, hams and souvenirs. Nothing impressed Terry quite like a small jar of something called Maple Cream in a refrigerator. The clerk said that you could spread it on your toast. Terry thought that was a good idea. You don't have to make pancakes or French toast to use Maple Syrup. So, Terry bought the Maple Cream and took it home. While he was marveling about how great it was, his wife, Rosemary was marveling about how a man with too much Maple Syrup would spend good money on some gray, nasty tasting product that she didn't want contaminating her bagel. But Terry studied about how to make Maple Cream and tried making it himself. He skimmed the gray, bitter tasting foam that formed around the edges and found that his product tasted and looked better than what he had bought. Most important, he made sure all of his customers got to taste it. They liked it! It soon grew to be his largest selling item.

As he looked for a way to cover Maple Candies, to improve their shelf life, Terry discovered that by cooking the Maple Cream a little firmer, it could be hand-dipped in chocolate to the dellight of many. He visited Sugarmaker meetings in Vermont and gave them samples of the new confection and told them how to make it. Some in attendance began making the chocolates the very next day. Many were buoyed by the enthusiasm he had for Maple Cream and began selling more by getting people to taste it. As a result of the trip, Terry began making granulated Maple Sugar and Cotton Candy as the Vermonter's did. On one of their trips to deliver Maple Cream to their largest customer, Rosemary insisted that they take along some bags of Cotton Candy for the people at the plant. The man in charge of the kitchen asked about the Maple Sugar and began buying it for their new product, Pumpkin Butter, which is sweetened only with Pure Maple Sugar. The result was sales of over 2 tons of Maple Sugar per year. That makes DeLoughary's Sugar Bush, quite likely, the largest producer of Maple Sugar in Michigan.

With production and sales of 4 to 5 tons of Pure Maple Cream per year, today DeLoughary's Sugar Bush is, to our knowledge, the largest producer of pure Maple Cream in the world. Terry is asked to speak about the product at Maple Production meetings in many areas. Production and sales of Maple Cream in Michigan has increased dynamically since his discovery in that tourist trap, not only because of his sales, but because he has shared his love of this wonderful product with his "competitors".

Thank you for your interest in our products. If you have any questions about anything, please call.