Ever since we made a batch, we’ve been running around yelling “Marco” “Boilo!” which after enough boilo is highly amusing. But I digress. What IS boilo anyway??

There is nowhere with more authority to turn to than David Wondrich, who wrote this Daily Beast article. Thanks for cluing us in!

After reading the article (you should read it) we were bummed to find that there was no associated recipe.

Twitter to the rescue! David provided this pointer.

An unofficial boilo recipe. Realize that boilo is an individual thing. Make it your own.

Of course we had to make some…

We made some adjustments to the recipe…abandoning raspberry ginger ale for black cherry selzter and ginger beer. We also added Star Anise and Mace which we just so happened to have sitting around. This is upscale boilo by god!

We boiled for a good 15-20 minutes, letting the spices infuse. But then we let the liquid cool down so that none of our alcohol would evaporate when we added it.

Since we have very good access to local shine, why, we used that. the gallon that we used clocked in not too hot at 107.4 proof. Believe me, the shine from around here is an outstanding product, and it clocks in higher than that with some regularity.

At first we were thinking 2 quarts. But then, what the hell…

The warm boilo was pretty good, but it was WAY better this morning after some more steeping time.

Final product came out just shy of two gallons. We imagine it’s somewhere between 60 and 80 proof. Can’t bubble it since there is so much crap in the liquid.

Anyway, thanks David!

Marco!

Boilo!