The Hunt for Wood Spirits Around the World

ARKVILLE — Brian D. Hoefling has written a book about his search around the world for Dryads. A Dryad is a spirit that lives in a tree. Now, the skeptic among us, reading this will say, tisk, tisk, tisk, what stuff and nonsense. But, be assured that skeptic has never had the ultimate joy of tasting a "Union and Liberty," a cocktail served at Arkville’s Union Grove distillery, made with, of all things, a maple spirit. Brian Mulder has discovered the dryad that lives in maple trees and freed it, only to trap it in a bottle to prove to you that there are spirits in trees. And good spirits they are! Move over Tinkerbell.

Brian Hoefling is my kind of writer. He has a great background in booze, and a great spirit of alcohol adventure, not the kind that introduces you to the local constabulary, late at night, staring into the beam of a large flashlight, but the kind where you are in a place you have never been and your new friends bring out the local libation. As Brian puts it, "In most bars, certainly in this country, and much of the world, you try and survey what bottles they have," You ask, "What were the sugars and starches that made this alcohol? It is a list of about 10 species that each of us can probably list sitting here."

But how many of us have gone to Sri Lanka, because you have heard of a palm sap spirit, Ceylon Arrack. But hearing that they ferment the sap of unopened coconut palm flowers, the few adventurers in the world of alcohol spirits, pack their rucksacks and head to the airport. In my youth in Ireland, the alcohol spirits that most of us knew of were poteen, the illegal whiskeys of Ireland and the clúrachán, who enslaved you and made you drink poteen. But, Brian came to find the world is full of wood saps that contain spirits waiting to capture and amaze us.

In 2023, Brian was putting together a panel for a hospitality conference and realized he could build the panel around spirits found in trees. He had a Sri Lankan Arrack producer; a Nigerian Raffia Palm spirit (Ògógóró) producer; and a sugar maple producer from Quebec. As he put the panel together he learned of more tree sap based spirits. By the time the panel was over, he had decided it was to be the subject of his next book.

Brian has dived deep into the history of tree spirits. The earliest reference he has found to a distillate of maple sugar is a letter from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington on the subject of a maple spirit here in New York. "When Jefferson was Secretary of State," Brian tells me, "he toured New York State encouraging people to tap their maple trees rather than cutting them down... He met a guy named Arthur Noble, [he] provided Jefferson with a sample of a spirit made from maple sugar that was very much like whiskey."

According to Brian, the "United States is the only country in the world that has two biological families represented. We have one palm sugar distiller in California". He speaks of the many tappable trees. "We have tons of birches." Brian knows several distillers who have considered making spirits from birch sap. Brian is aware of four distillers in Europe that have produced birch spirits, Sweden, Russia and two in the UK. Two of the distilleries that produced birch spirits have closed. There are other sugar yielding trees in North America that some people tap for non-commercial distillation, Brian has found, but, as their sugar yields are low compared to the Maple and Birch trees, trees such as Black Walnut, Beech, Bass and Sycamore are likely not commercially viable. "Hickory sugar exists" but hickory is usually used as a flavoring, rather than the source of the spirits.

Brian, in the last chapter of his book, speaks of how there are new methods used in Maple Sugar extraction which may widen the variety of dyad spirits in the future. I nod as if I know what he is talking about as he speaks of using "reverse osmosis" to extract water and condense the sugar output. Thank God I can look it up and explain it in the piece I am writing, as if... well... Reverse Osmosis is a purification process that uses high pressure to push water through a semi-permeable membrane, separating pure water molecules from dissolved salts, chemicals, and microbes, or in this case sugars from sap. However, Brian points out that not only is it not an efficient way of removing water, it does not create the cooking tastes that are a part of making a fine spirit. So the maple producers who use reverse osmosis, do boil the syrup in the last steps of the process. But... ever the adventurer, Brian says that if one had enough Black Walnut Trees, and " are willing to install the vacuum tube negative pressure system, and collect a bunch of sap during the relevant season, and use a reverse osmosis system, to get the water out, your yield per tree would still be lower than a sugar maple, but, you could very plausibly make a fermented or even distilled spirit out of that." I can see in his eyes that he likely hopes someone does.

His journey on the other side of the world has been in every way an adventure. "To experience products that are six hundred years old, from the Philippines, to go to Indonesia, and try three different tree's [spirits]" is anyone's idea of real adventure. Palm sap does not have to be concentrated. "As soon as it is out of the tree, it is fermenting [from airborne yeasts.] "It is bubbling in the glass if you want to drink it fresh." This is true of wayalinah, the fermented drink made in Tasmania from the cider gum tree. On the other hand, all the spirits made from maple or birch sap, must be cooked to concentrate the sugars enough to ferment or distill. "The palm spirits are made from fresh sap and wild fermentation." I am reminded of the medieval recipes for mead, fermented honey wine, made before yeast was understood. The recipes describe storing the honeyed water in conditions where airborne yeast would be likely to settle in the brew.

In California, Barber Lee Spirits makes Lambanóg, a traditional Filipino-style spirit produced from sugar derived from the nectar of palm trees. The first time Brian tried their Lambanóg and found it very like Filipino Lambanóg "in many ways, but a little like the unaged maple spirit" he had tried because it had the flavor of the cooking process. Brian was reminded of the difference of a rum made from molasses and one made from fresh cane juice. It takes a journey of many leagues to be able to speak with that authority.

And likely that is why the audience at the Union Grove was so interesting. There were two fellows from the BeeLine Meadery, who made and sold mead in Jefferson. There was a maple sugar producer (Tree Juice Maple Syrup) and his child, who asked many questions which showed an intention to follow in the father's footsteps and carry on the tradition of producing Catskill Maple syrup. Most of us will not be able to go on a journey of such discovery as Brian Hoefling has done. But it is an adventure to go to his web page, there to buy his books and bask in the knowledge he gleaned as he chased spirits around the globe. https://www.drinkdryads.com/