The smell of autumn rises from Ann DeMaury's basement.

It's the scent of cinnamon, cloves, sugar, apples and a little something special cooking in DeMaury's 40-gallon copper kettle during apple butter season at Ann's Apple Butter in Botetourt County.

"Of course you have to wait until the apples are ripe, so usually about mid-September we'll get started, and I'll stay busy, six days a week, right up through January," she said. "Well, I'll finish by January if I'm lucky."

A day of apple butter preparation starts with labeling jars from the previous day's canning, then a pallet of apples is brought in by tractor and the chopping, ricing (making apple sauce), cooking and spicing begin.

At 4 p.m., the apple butter has been cooking for hours and is ready for canning. Family members and youngsters from DeMaury's church form an assembly line to pour, top, wash, dry and assemble jar after jar of apple butter.

"It gets a little warm in there early on," DeMaury said, "but by January you're thankful for the warmth."

She will eventually can about 13,000 quarts, many of which will go to local restaurants and shops.DeMaury is a second-generation commercial apple butter producer. Her father engineered machine-powered apple peelers and sauce churners beginning in the early 1970s. She took over in 1997 and has vendors from Northern Virginia to Georgia.

She has had desperate customers from as far away as Arizona call trying to find her apple butter.

"If they'll pay the shipping, I'll box it and send it to them."