Watch: Sucrerie de la Montagne Serves a Maple Syrup-Drenched Feast | Eater Montreal

"About 45 minutes outside Montreal, I visited Sucrerie de la Montagne, a sugar shack near Rigaud where owner Pierre Faucher—sporting a woodsman look—has overseen maple-tapping operations for some 40 years. He took apart old barns and repurposed historic farm buildings to create a rustic dining hall that operates year-round and even offers cabins for overnight stays. I learned the whole maple-syrup process from sap-tapping through to bottling—about 40 litres of sap yields roughly one litre of syrup—and saw that the farm has moved from unwieldy hand-operated devices to electric drills (“I’m not going to lie,” laughs Faucher), though he tries to keep production less industrialized to preserve the farm’s atmosphere: “I keep it the old fashioned way, it’s really important for me, for the kids, for the people who come here to walk through the maple forest.” The visit finished with the classic sugar-shack feast—pea soup, back bacon, sausage, maple-glazed ham, omelette, and more—hearty food that really lets the taste of maple syrup shine through." - Tim Forster