MapleAqua creator Stephen Ferruzza lives in Oregon but is selling his maple sap beverages, which use Adirondack sap and mushrooms, on both coasts, including the Tri-Lakes area. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

An Oregon-based company which turns maple sap into a carbonated maple drink is using Adirondack sap and chaga mushrooms, and it hit the shelves of several stores in the Tri-Lakes this week.

MapleAqua creator Stephen Ferruzza said he has wanted to sell a maple-sap-based beverage for a long time, and now he can thanks to a couple of new technologies and techniques.

“It’s been a lifelong dream for me,” Ferruzza said. “Making maple syrup has always been my favorite thing to do in the entire world.”

Ferruzza said the maple sap comes from his family’s 114-year-old, 200-acre sugarbush in Beaver River in the western Adirondacks. He said his great-grandfather was a doctor for the loggers in that area and that he is the fourth generation of his family to harvest maple there.

His wife’s family owns the Gilmore Farm in Little Falls, just south of the Adirondacks with around 40 acres of maple and birch trees.

The MapleAqua drink combines two of the ways the family and employees there have kept themselves hydrated: drinking maple sap straight from the tree and boiling chunks of chaga mushrooms into tea. The drinks are packed with trendy health food staples including CBD, yerbe mate and ginseng.

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Maple

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Ferruzza said the flavor profile of his maple sap comes from a variety of places. It starts in the soil the trees are planted in, which he said is sandy and gives the sap a butterscotch and vanilla flavor.

Ferruzza also uses some unconventional methods in the sap collection process. He said birds chirp at a different frequency in the spring and that the trees respond to that by opening up their veins and releasing more sap.

“What we found was that you can mimic that with frequencies of xylophones or chimes per se, harps,” Ferruzza said. “We play different chimes and music before each tapping to collect the sap at its prime.”

Ferruzza said there is no water added to the drink; it is just sap. He does carbonate it, to offer it as a healthy substitution for soda, beer or carbonated water.

Ferruzza said he was held back for a long time because sap is hard to preserve and expensive to take to facilities, and he said freezing it was not an option. The opportunity came after the company developed an ability to use a mobile ultraviolet light to sterilize the sap.

This extended the sap’s shelf life from two weeks to two years and Ferruzza said it tripled production.

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Chaga

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MapleAqua drinks also have chaga mushrooms. Chaga used by MapleAqua is also supplied by Birch Boys in Tupper Lake.

Chaga boasts the highest antioxidant value of any naturally occurring substance on earth with 1,104 “oxygen radical absorbance capacity” units. The second highest, acai berries, have 165 units.

Though chaga is commonly used as a preventative measure, it also has a reputation for treating ailments including cancer. Chaga was used in Russia folk medicine for years as a cancer treatment, and recent studies from Korean research centers show possible cancer inhibiting and destroying properties when testing in mice.

“It’s mostly folklore,” Ferruzza said.

Nevertheless, he attributes it to aiding his mother for several years while she battled cancer. She passed away recently after being diagnosed with cancer four years ago. Though she had been given a six-month prognosis, Ferruzza said she lived long enough to see his first baby be born.

MapleAqua comes in two flavors: yerba mate and ginseng.

Ferruzza said the yerba mate flavor it is a bit of a rarity: a drink that provides energy and hydration. Yerba mate contains caffeine, and maple sap is 98% water.

MapleAqua is being sold at Raquette River Brewing and Well Dressed Foods in Tupper Lake; Simply Gourmet in Lake Placid, as well as its affiliates the ‘Dack Shack, Big Mountain Deli and Creperie and the Base Camp Cafe; Adirondack Experience, the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake; the Indian River General Store in Croghan; and Ferruzza said there are more locations planned for.