A new local craft distillery is giving customers a taste of history.

Christmas City Spirits in the historic Sun Inn in Bethlehem has included coal region boilo, a traditional liquor recipe brought by Polish and Lithuanian immigrants to Schuylkill County, right next to Martha Washington’s own cherry cordial recipe and other hard liquor favorites.

Head distiller Michael Dombrosky, a native of Schuylkill County, learned the craft of boilo brewing from his Uncle Stosh Dombrowskie back in 1996. Uncle Argyle, as he was affectionately called, was the family brewer and kept alive the recipe handed down to him. Michael Dombrosky’s great-grandmother used to make it and she taught her daughter (his grandmother) how to make it, and so it goes.

“Everybody’s recipe is different, but the base root is the alcohol,” he said.

Boilo is a sweet, smooth, honey-based liquor flavored with ginger, cinnamon and other spices that warms a person’s insides on cold winter days. In fact, many immigrant miners in the region would warm themselves with a hot cup of boilo in the winter after coming home from the mines. Similar to boilo, krupnik was a favorite in Lithuanian households. It’s a little sweeter and a little higher proof than boilo, Dombrosky said.

“The actual botanicals, the spices, are along the same lines,” he said.

In Poland, some people would use white wine as a base, but in the states, it’s whiskey. In Schuylkill County, Four Queens Whiskey from Laird and Co. in New Jersey was a favorite base for boilo, he said.

“Prior to that, we used a high-end rye whiskey,” he said. “Most of that stuff was greater than Four Queens, which is 101 proof.”

Dombrosky’s boilo is brewed from a whiskey he distills using six-rolled grain barley grown in Coplay at Suyundalla Farms. He has worked with the farm to produce the perfect grain for the barley whiskey, right down to the fertilizer in the ground.

To the whiskey, he adds cinnamon, caraway seeds, anise seeds, allspice, some pepper and homemade ginger syrup. Other family recipes use lemon juice, orange juice or apple juice.

“It kind of sets us a little bit different,” he said about the ginger syrup.

Brett Biggs, one of the co-owners of Christmas City Spirits, said he had never heard of boilo until last year, but he thought there might be a market for it

“People here, even in the Lehigh Valley, don’t really know what it is, but there are people here who have moved down from Schuylkill County,” Briggs said. “We thought this might be something fun to introduce to the public, because it’s not something you go out and buy. It’s something you would make.”

The new distillery has discovered that their customers are indeed excited about this old historical drink that’s new to them.

“People are like, this is good. That’s number one in our book,” he said. “The taste of something needs to be good, because we want a quality product.”

Another historical favorite at Christmas City Spirits is Martha Washington’s cherry cordial sold by the name Cherry Bounce. Given that Martha stayed at the Sun Inn, Briggs thinks its apropos that her recipe is available to sample and buy there.

“It’s all-natural stuff,” he said. “That’s one of our best sellers.”

Cherry Bounce is so sweet and flavorful that one might forget there’s alcohol in it. The liquor is made with dark sweet cherries, tart cherry juice, cloves and cinnamon. It won the Good Food Award liquor division, Dombrosky said.

The distillery is also making its own select grain vodka and whiskey barley. The vodka is made from wheat and oats. Dombrosky said the wheat gives it a sweetness and a nice bouquet of fragrances.

“It tricks your olfactory senses into thinking there are fruits, but there are no fruits involved,” he said. “The oats give you a creaminess or a full round mouth feel and tricks your taste buds into thinking you’re drinking something sweet, but you’re not.”

The barley whiskey is lighter and almost ethereal in how it whisks away, leaving a person wondering if he drank anything. It, too, has won an award - the MicroLiquor Spirit Awards 2020 Silver Medal.

And coming soon is a colonial rum.

“It’s pretty much ready to roll,” Biggs said.

Christmas City Spirits’ tasting times and order pickup hours are 3 to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, 3 to 9 p.m. on Fridays, noon to 9 p.m. on Saturdays, and noon to 7 p.m. on Sundays. For more information and prices, go to christmascityspirits.com.