SAP! was founded in 2015 by Chas Smith, his cousin, Nikita Salmon, and Charlie Smith (Chas's dad). Nikita and his parents have sugared for decades, and it is an important part of the family livelihood. Chas and Charlie have done family scale sugaring over the years.
With some experimentation, they concluded that two carbonated products: one at 6.5 brix and one at 3.5 brix would offer healthy, pleasantly sweet but non-sugary alternatives to sugar sweetened soft drinks. In 2017 they added a pure birch sap product. Birch sap has been used as a natural health tonic in Scandinavia, Russia and Eastern Europe for centuries. It has great health properties but has an earthy rather than a sweet flavor.
They source all the maple and birch sap from Vermont farmers and do the processing and canning at the Vermont Hard Cider Company. The products are pure maple sap with water extracted to concentrate the natural sugar, minerals and nutrients. Carbonation and a drop of natural citrus are added.
