Eyeing a New Industry and Forest Conservation, Researchers Develop Aspen Syrup

At a private event held early last summer, 10 people tried something that no one in the world had ever tasted before — a cocktail crafted from some of the world’s only known stock of aspen syrup.

The bartender was a Utah State University scientist, Matthew LaPlante, who in collaboration with other researchers this year demonstrated the viability of producing syrup from Utah’s state tree, the quaking aspen.

“We tried it on pancakes first, of course, and that was a transcendent experience. It’s not like anything I ever tasted, like a buttery caramel, with hints of cashews and lemongrass,” said LaPlante, a multidisciplinary academic who teaches journalism, has a doctorate in climate science, and writes books about human health — and who harvested and processed the syrup from the aspen trees at his home in Big Cottonwood Canyon. “But as soon as we’d done that, we started thinking about everything else it could be good for.”

So LaPlante, who also co-owns a bar in Salt Lake City that specializes in zero-alcohol

cocktails, put together a drink that his customers have been asking for ever since.

“I knew the ‘wow factor’ of getting to try something that no one else has ever tried before, something that we literally stopped making after the first 10 drinks, would be enticing,”

LaPlante said. “But the reaction to the drink itself, to the flavors that come from the aspen syrup, was overwhelmingly positive.”

The drink won’t be going on the permanent menu anytime soon, though, because there just isn’t that much of it. “This stuff is like rhodium,” LaPlante said, referencing one of the rarest and most expensive minerals in the world, “except it tastes better.”

For now, in fact, aspen syrup is rarer than rhodium, because there simply aren’t very many people who have attempted to make it. In fact, there may not be more than a few dozen ounces of it anywhere in the world.

Utah State scientist Youping Sun is aiming to change that — he thinks there may be demand for tree syrups beside the one that dominates the market.

“Maple syrup is delicious, but that’s not the only reason why it is so common,” said Sun, who has also researched viability of maple syrup production from non-traditional maple

species in Utah and beyond. “It’s really because maple trees are such generous givers of sap.”

Tapping a maple can be quite easy. If you drive a spout into a tree at the right time of the year and put a bucket underneath it, you’re likely to get plenty of sap.

But sap and syrup are two very different things. The sap that flows from maples is about 2 percent sugar. Syrup is 66 to 68 percent sugar. So the majority of the cost of maple syrup isn’t related to harvesting but processing — it must be cooked down for long hours, such that it takes about 40 gallons of maple sap to make syrup.

Given how much sap it takes, several decades ago maple farmers began using vacuum pressure to increase their yields.

“And what we suspected is that even though the sap from other trees doesn’t flow as liberally as maples, we could use these same processes to extract enough sap to make aspen syrup,” Sun said.

That suspicion was confirmed on April 28, when LaPlante noticed quick-moving bubbles of sap coursing through the bright green tubes in his grove and into a holding tank. “We got some new taps into another set of trees almost immediately,” he said, “and within minutes, those trees were producing, too.”

The aspen sap yield doesn’t rival maple—but it turns out that the sugar content does. That was a bit surprising to the researchers, since some earlier studies from another species of aspen that grows more prominently in the Eastern United States, the bigtooth aspen, have shown substantially lower sugar content.

The researchers got about 20 gallons of aspen sap in their small pilot study. With a little luck, that would be enough for about half gallon of syrup.

“But I’m very new at this, so there were some mistakes along the way,” LaPlante acknowledged. “I burnt some of it and I had to send an email to my fellow researchers telling them that I screwed up. They were gracious, but I felt terrible about it.”

A bit of the remaining allotment went to making the cocktails. The profits from those sales were donated to a Salt Lake non-profit that helps people struggling with addiction. The rest will be tested in the lab and used in taste tests.

The goal isn’t just to produce a new commercial product. Utah State scientists have been at the forefront of research showing that aspen are keystone species that support high levels of biodiversity. They’re often considered “natural firebreaks” that tend to burn less frequently and with less intensity.

“But even though these forests are absolutely beautiful, that’s not always enough to make sure they’re protected,” said Mike Farrell, a collaborator on the project who is the former director of Cornell University’s Uihlein Forest, a maple syrup research and education center in Lake Placid, New York and the co-founder of The Forest Farmers, which has helped drive nascent production of birch, walnut, and beech syrups on the East Coast.

“Maple producers protect biodiversity by conserving a natural habitat that might otherwise be cut or developed for other land uses. We think aspen might have that potential, too.”

LaPlante hopes so.

“At a minimum, we know it makes a heck of a good martini,” he said. “So, we’re already winning.”