Funks Grove Maple Sirup, 6 generations of production

Inside a small cabin just south of Bloomington, a place that's been making maple syrup for more than 200 years.

"Funks Grove is a native timber. This was here long before the settlers arrived. Isaac Funk settled here in 1824," said Debby Funk, part of the 6 generations of the Funk family who taps maple trees in McLean County.

"Jonathon is our son and he's the 6th generation who works here."

Funks Grove Maple Sirup has 4,000 trees on 500 acres of land.

"The syrup has been made ever since they settled here but it wasn't until 1891 that they began to sell it as a commercial product."

Funks Grove isn’t technically a town of its own. It’s now part of Shirley, with a population of 378 people.

Funks Grove Maple Sirup is the largest producer in Illinois.

Each February is tap season.

"Syrup season is in late winter, early spring. The freezing-thawing cycle. It has to be above freezing during the day and below freezing at night. We used to say mid February to mid March but it's warming up sooner so we're starting sooner and ending sooner," said Funk.

They tap sugar maples and it's all done manually.

"The process is you drill a whole in the trunk of the tree, you put the spout in the tree. We used to use some 6,000 buckets, we used to hang all those buckets but we don't do that anywhere . We use tubing now because it's a much better way to get the sap in quicker, cleaner, fresher."

Funk says the sap looks like water and has only 2 to 3% water.

"We haul it here to the sugar house. A big stainless steel tank outside that it all ends up going into. From there we pump it inside, we run it through this reverse osmosis machine. That will separate out about half of the water before we boil it. To turn sap into syrup is just a matter of boiling it, evaporating all that excess water. Your concentrating the sugar in the sap. As its boiling, the heat is caramelizing that sugar.

It's then filtered, and nothing is added. Pure Maple syrup.

"It can be done in a day, " she said.

Funk says the whole family pitches in during the high season.

"It'll take about a week to get all the trees tapped."

Over the past couple of decades, the Funks have added chocolate-dipped pure maple candy, pure maple ice cream, pure maple sugar, and bourbon-barrel aged pure maple sirup.

"We make it all right here."

Each year, they make and sell about 1,500 gallons of sirup each season.

"Once we go through all the bottles, we close. We generally sell out in August, early September."

Funk says they see customers from all over the world and this year, they've been a lot busier with the centennial celebration.

"Back in the 90's people started driving Route 66 again but we didn't think the renewed popularity would last. More and more people are driving the route and more and more people are interested in it. We get people from all different countries. We've seen people from European countries, Hawaii, Japan, all over the world. We've had some pretty busy days but so far, we've been able to keep up." Funk smiled.

What makes Funks Grove maple sirup different than the rest? Debby Funk says it's location, location, location.

"We have really rich soil here in McLean County. I think that's part of what makes our syrup so good. Lots of people will do a blind taste test and they mention it has a very rich, caramelly taste to it. It's also healthy, it doesn't have any extra ingredients in it."

As for the future of the business, Debby Funk says she hopes the family continues the tradition.

"There aren't many 6th generation families running the same business. It's quite amazing."

Lisa: "What would Isaac Funk say about how long you've been doing this?"

"He'd be amazed," she said.

Funks Grove is the largest producer of maple sirup in Illinois, it's a favorite stop along Route 66 where you can get your kicks and a jug of real maple syrup, sirup with an "i".

For more information about Funks Grove Maple Sirup, click here.