  
Gordon Jones and Sharon Yarling, with the help of a mysterious recipe dating back at least 200 years, have found a secret in the trees growing on their rolling 54 acres in Trafalgar, 35 miles south of Indianapolis.
The husband and wife, following a ritual whose roots likely trace to American Indians who inhabited the area, have become one of the world’s few, if not only, manufacturers of shagbark hickory syrup.
Jones and Yarling found that by rendering a mysterious extract from the bark of trees native only to Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan, they have been able to produce a syrup craved by white-tablecloth restaurants from San Francisco to New York.
There are many mysteries surrounding the syrup, including the man who helped Jones and Yarling launch Hickoryworks Inc. 10 years ago.
While the couple was felling trees on their land, a mysterious old man asked if he could buy some of the fallen timber for firewood. As he waited for the young helpers he had brought to load his truck, the man noticed a nearby shagbark hickory and told Jones of a syrup his great, great, grandmother made from the bark of such trees.
"I said, ' From the bark ' Jones recalled.
But he struck a deal with the man to give him free wood if he supplied the shagbark syrup recipe. The man reappeared weeks later with the tattered recipe.
Jones said the only written documentation of shagbark hickory syrup is the yellowed parchment supplied by the then-96-year-old man. Jones and Yarling know neither the man’s name nor whether he’s still alive, but they protect the paper like gold.
"It makes me feel a little like Colonel Sanders," Jones said. "That’s the secret behind our success."
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