Welcome to our web site. First I like to thank you for taking the time to visit our site and getting to know more about us, our products, our goals and visions. .

How We Started

Back in the spring of 2005 I came across an article about a gentleman who started tapping birch trees to collect the birch sap for making a beverage. The article talked about how to tap a tree, when to tap a tree, the difference products that could be made from birch sap, and some health benefits of drinking birch sap.

I found this quite interesting and all I thought about was tapping a birch tree. I immediately gather supplies that I would require to tap my first tree. I got a plastic water tee, plastic hose, plastic two liter bottle, tape, a nail, string, a drill and bit.

I drove about one kilometer from my town and stopped where there was a birch tree about 10 meters from the edge of the road. I drill a hole 40mm deep, placed the tee in the hole, and taped the hose in the tee. I drove a nail over the hole and tied the string to it and hung the bottle from it. The bottle now hung about 20cm below the hole and I placed the hose inside the bottle.

I waited for a few minutes and nothing. No sap was flowing from the tree so I thought that I must have been too late and the season was over, so I left the bottle over night. The next morning I drove back to where I had tapped the birch tree and looked at the bottle from the side of the road. I did not see anything in the bottle so I starting walking towards it. As I got closer, I noticed that the ground under the bottle was all wet. When I looked back up at the bottle I noticed that it was overflowing with pure, fresh, natural birch sap.

I was amazed that the bottle was full, so I took it home to drink. It was just like water. It was clear, had the same consistence, as water, yet it had a light sweet flavor, and left a smooth velvety texture in the mouth. Finding this so interesting I decided that I conducted a test on my family and friend.

As family and friends came to visit I would get out two glasses, and fill one with water and the other with raw birch sap. I then get them to taste the two glasses of liquid. Almost every time, the response was “what about it”. At first people could not tell the difference between the two. So I would explain that they have to take their time to fully taste the liquid, and them they would notice a difference. When I told them that it was raw birch sap, they were totally amazed.

That spring I collected 14, two liters bottle of sap from the same tree, and that year I studied and learned all that I could about birch sap. I learned about birch trees, products made from birch sap, health benefits from birch sap, what in the sap, difference systems for collecting birch sap.

Spring of 2006

ell after learning all I could about birch, I decided to invest in a gravity flow tubing system for collecting the sap. I purchased enough equipment to tapped 200 trees and we ended up collecting 500 gallons of pure, fresh, natural birch sap. The site looked like a spider web. We have a main line that was 150m long and tied into it was, ten lateral lines that were 10m in length. From the lateral was tee line that weaved in and out through the trees that we were going to tap. Once all the lines were setup we start drilling holes in the trees to place the taps or spouts. The sap would them flow from the tap, through the tee lines, the lateral lines, and the main line down to a 55 gallon barrels.

We collected 100 gallons of sap every three days, and would travel 600 km, to bring the sap to the winery. Our first attempt at making wine was not successful; however, our second attempt was a great success. We were able to produce 170 cases of wine. Our wine is made with100% Birch Sap and no water added. It is fortified and aged about 2-6 months in stainless steel tanks before bottling.

Sampling the wine started with family and friends and we eventually went to the president of the wine society in Newfoundland and Labrador. We presented a bottle without a label and reframed from telling him what the wine was made from. This is what he had to say “This wine shows clear and bright in the glass; provides a delicate fragrance of soft apple and pear; sits well in the mouth with pleasant acids balancing the evident fruit sugars; persistent flavours of ripe pear, Mandarin orange, and Delicious apple blend harmoniously and without bitterness.” We score an 18/20,

Now that had a great tasting wine, we needed a label and name.

What in a Name

Birch trees and sap has been known for centuries, and in places all over the world. For hundreds of years, Koreans have know about birch sap and the health benefits of drinking the sap and to this day they still celebrate the spring with a birch sap festival. North America Native Indians learned a long time ago that they could make an incision in the base of a birch tree and were able to collect the sap. Birch tree are well known in Celtic history and language, for Beth the first letter in their alphabet, meaning Birch.

Also in Europe birch sap was, and still is consumed in place like Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Finland. Thorough out many nations, cultures, and history, birch was known, forgotten and now, once again, back forever.

At first I did not know what to call our wine. From my research and learning about birch trees I seen several write ups and comment about birch being looked at as feminine by nature. As spring brings new life after the long winter, the birch is first to bring new leaves. After a fire, the birch tree is first to grow, bringing new life to the land. The twigs were used to make a broom to keep one’s home clean, a lady touch. The twigs were also used as a crown for when maidens were too married. The more I learned the more I discovery and the name just appeared “Lady of the Woods”

Now that we had a name we needed to find a market, yet we have to sample our wine first. Our first mass sampling was in the fall at Wine Fest 2006 in St. John’s. There we over several thousand people that attended the show, and we have a great response to the wine. Some say that the wine was too sweet and that the bouquet was a bit rich, yet over all we have 75 percent who sample the wine enjoyed it, some even said it was the best wine they ever tasted. Many people complimented us on the bottle shape, label design and the overall presentation of the wine.

We have an instance hit, and knew we had to get “Lady of the Woods” on the market

As time went by, and while we waited for approval, to get our wine on the market, I continue learning about birch sap, and other products which we, could and want to make, beverage like Vodka, Soju, juices, and a health beverage.

For me to proceed further with the business ,I needed to raise more money, so I wrote a business plan and in time I was able to obtain funding to buy more equipment. We were able to get a transport truck, a vacuum system, a high pressure tube cleaner, enough equipment to tapped 1,000 trees, allowing us to collect thousands of gallons of birch sap.

On the Shelves, Well it Was.

It took a while but we finally got “Lady of the Woods” approved and on the shelves of the winery and 25 Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corporation stores. In three months it was all gone, sold out 150 cases of wine. In that short time it was the number one selling wine at the winery. We were totally amazed at how well the wine did. Expansion was called for, and that is what we did.

In the spring of 2007 we ended up collecting 10,000 gallons of sap using a vacuum system to collect the sap for the trees. Some people think that this would hard the trees, yet studies have shown that no harm is done to the trees. We are actually saving the trees for we are protecting them from being cut for fire wood. Why use a tree once for fire wood, when we can use it for 30-40 years and help protect the environment and provide beneficial beverages for us all.

From the sap that we collected in 2007 we produced approximately 6,000 gallons of wine. We got our first order from this batch in February 2008 and continue getting great, even better results than our first batch of wine. We listen to our customers, and when they said the wine was a little too sweet, we added less sugar to our process, and the results is a smoother quality wine.

Thank You

We like to thank you for reading about us and our products. I hope that you have gain a bit of knowledge about birch sap and will continue to come back to our site to learn more. If you have not already done so, please try our wine. I’m sure that it will be something that you have never tasted before, and you may be pleasantly surprise with its effects.

From all of at Sap World we wish great happiness and health, and Enjoy :)

Craig Lewis
Founder and CEO