Boilo is a traditional

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

Yuletide Yule, actually Yuletide ("Yule time") is a festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later undergoing Christianised reformulation resulting in the now better-known Christmastide. The earliest references to Yule are by way of indig ...

drink in the

Coal Region The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons. The region is typically defined as compri ...

of northeastern and east central

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Boilo is a variation of a traditional Lithuanian liqueur called "

Krupnik Krupnik (Polish language, Polish, or Krupnikas (Lithuanian language, Lithuanian) is a traditional sweet alcoholic drink similar to a liqueur, based on grain spirit (usually vodka) and honey, popular in Poland and Lithuania. In Poland it is grou ...

", or " Krupnikas". Characteristically boilo has a standard recipe including

citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. The genus ''Citrus'' is native to ...

fruits (such as

oranges An orange is a fruit of various citrus species in the family Rutaceae (see list of plants known as orange); it primarily refers to ''Citrus'' × ''sinensis'', which is also called sweet orange, to distinguish it from the related ''Citrus × ...

and

lemon The lemon (''Citrus limon'') is a species of small evergreen trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily Northeast India (Assam), Northern Myanmar or China. The tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culin ...

s), herbs and

spices A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices are ...

(such as

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed or ground spice of several species of the genus ''Myristica''. ''Myristica fragrans'' (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit: nutmeg, from its seed, an ...

, cloves,

caraway Caraway, also known as meridian fennel and Persian cumin (''Carum carvi''), is a biennial plant in the family Apiaceae, native to western Asia, Europe, and North Africa. Etymology The etymology of "caraway" is unclear. Caraway has been ...

seed, and anise seed), and other ingredients such as

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

and

ginger ale Ginger ale is a carbonated soft drink flavoured with ginger. It is consumed on its own or used as a mixer, often with spirit-based drinks. There are two main types of ginger ale. The golden style is credited to the Irish doctor Thomas Joseph ...

. The traditional base ingredient in boilo is moonshine. Many modern recipes have replaced home-brewed moonshine with

blended whiskey A blended whiskey (or blended whisky) is the product of blending different types of whiskeys and sometimes also neutral grain spirits, colorings, and flavorings. It is generally the product of mixing one or more higher-quality straight or singl ...

, rye or

grain alcohol Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl group linked to a hyd ...

, and may be made on a stove top or in a

slow cooker A slow cooker, also known as a crock-pot (after a trademark owned by Sunbeam Products but sometimes used generically in the English-speaking world), is a countertop electrical cooking appliance used to simmer at a lower temperature than o ...

. Some recipes specify Four Queens, a blended whiskey originally bottled in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

by Kasser Liquors and later sold to Laird & Company in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. Variations on the traditional recipe include honeyberry boilo, "tomata" boilo, blueberry boilo, and apple pie boilo. Some traditions recommend that holiday music and decorating accompany the cooking process, to add to the festive effect of the beverage. As with krupnik, some believe it to have curative properties for the onset of fall/winter related ailments such as a cold or influenza. There are many boilo taste test contests held annually in the Coal Region of Pennsylvania where home brewers compete over whose recipe is most authentic and whose boilo is the most easy drinking. The Annual Pfeiffenberger Boilo Contest is among the most prestigious and intense of such contests. Dozens of family boilo recipes are judged and a series of voting parameters and rounds of taste-testing decide the winner.

Commercial Products

* In 2016 Jabberwocky Candles of Frackville, PA released a Boilo Scented Candle. * As of December 2012 Brokey’s LLC of Ringtown Pennsylvania introduced an "instant" version of the drink that is available commercially. * Spring Gate Vineyard and Brewery introduced a commercial version in 2020 that was based on the owner's coal region family recipe.

References

{{Honey-based alcoholic drinks Mixed drinks Christmas food https://www.pottsmerc.com/2012/12/21/budding-boilo-baron-peddles-pa-coal-region-cocktail/amp/