Coal Region Apple Pie Boilo

Ah, it’s autumn in the Coal Region; Pennsylvania apples and locally made cider are popping up in stores and roadside stands everywhere you go. When that “nip” in the air comes to Anthracite country, we “coalcrackers” turn to a “nip” of a beverage sure to warm your fingers, toes, and everything in between…boilo; in this instance, Apple Pie Boilo.

Boilo, (aka “The Champagne of the Coal Region”) is a potent alcoholic beverage brewed up in Coal Region kitchens for generations. It is firmly entrenched in our culture and holiday traditions.

Also known as “The Anthracite miner’s cure for everything” it was used as a home remedy to treat aches, pains, colds and flu. Weary miners who toiled throughout the day in cold, damp mines would sip a small glass of boilo after their shift.

Boilo has a reputation for “exploding” or starting fires when being prepared which I attribute to cooks adding the highly flammable alcohol to the pot of simmering fruit and sweetener mixture while it was still over (or near) an open flame on the stove top (never add any alcohol to a recipe while the pan/pot is still over the flame!) Using common sense cooking techniques, making boilo is quite safe!

Boilo has become so popular that bars, fire departments, and the Schuylkill County Fair hold boilo competitions. There are coveted “family recipes” guarded like Fort Knox; every boilo maker has their “secret ingredient/technique” and all swear their recipe is “the best”.

This fruity/sweet drink with the kick of a mine mule more than likely owes its origins here in the Coal Region to the many Lithuanian immigrants who settled here to work in the Anthracite mines and recreated their beloved Lithuanian honey liquor known as krupnik or krupnikas in their new home.

The standard boilo recipe includes oranges, lemons, spices and honey. The traditional base ingredient in boilo was moonshine. Many of today’s boilo makers have replaced moonshine with Four Queens blended whiskey. Some use Everclear (grain alcohol), but I do not for various reasons (more on that below).

Laird & Company, distiller of Four Queens, Scobeyville, NJ, says it is sold more in Schuylkill County than anywhere else in the country; ninety-five perfect of Four Queens Whiskey’s total US Sales are sold in Pennsylvania and twenty-five percent of all sales in Pennsylvania are from Schuylkill County Following a distant second, and third were Berks, and Luzerne counties.

Four Queens v. Everclear

Although some boilo makers use Everclear, a grain alcohol, in their recipes, I do not recommend it. It is more than twice the proof of most standard hard liquor and the effects of intoxication build faster when drinking an alcohol such as Everclear with its 95 percent alcohol content (190 proof). It is one of the purest and most potent alcoholic beverages available and so dangerous that several states have outlawed its sale and consumption. Some states prohibit the sale of Everclear.

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Many a “coalcracker” remembers a pot of boilo being kept warm on the back burner of the stove, ready to be offered to visiting friends and neighbors who came to call.

In celebration of the swing in weather here in the Coal Region from balmy days of summer to the crisp, cool days and nights of autumn and the approaching winter, I bring you this recipe for Apple Pie Boilo.

Made from apple cider and juice rather than the traditional citrus fruits, this Apple Pie Boilo will warm the adult in the family from head to toe. If you want, or need, to serve a non-alcoholic version, substitute ginger ale for the whiskey.

This version is very sweet, you can adjust the sugar to your taste is you prefer or you can skip the apples if you desire.

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Four Queens Whiskey
Laird & Company, One Laird Road, Scobeyville, NJ 07724
1-877-GETLAIRD

Locate Four Queens in PA at Pennsylvania State Stores
Fine Wine and Good Spirits

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