--- title: Watch John Boehner Tell You How To Cook Your Turkey description: House Speaker John Boehner reveals the secret to the perfect turkey brine in a new video, and it actually sounds pretty good. canonical: https://time.com/3607265/john-boehner-turkey-video-thanksgiving/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-26T15:02:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:14:51.434Z og:title: Watch John Boehner Tell You How To Cook Your Turkey og:description: House Speaker John Boehner reveals the secret to the perfect turkey brine in a new video, and it actually sounds pretty good. og:url: https://time.com/3607265/john-boehner-turkey-video-thanksgiving/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt867d017a92b4f34d/69876b3355a859215fa845ad/john-boehner-brine-recipe.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: john boehner brine recipe og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch John Boehner Tell You How To Cook Your Turkey twitter:description: House Speaker John Boehner reveals the secret to the perfect turkey brine in a new video, and it actually sounds pretty good. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt867d017a92b4f34d/69876b3355a859215fa845ad/john-boehner-brine-recipe.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch John Boehner Tell You How To Cook Your Turkey by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Nov 26, 2014 3:02 PM UTC  by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Nov 26, 2014 3:02 PM UTC Nothing could be a more soothing—and more bizarre—than listening to Speaker of the House John Boehner explain in his resonant bass voice how he cooks his turkey for Thanksgiving. The most powerful Republican in Congress revealed “The Boehner Brine,” the perfect Thanksgiving turkey in a video released Tuesday. > [](https://twitter.com/SpeakerBoehner/status/537608188028522497) Like a besuited Martha Stewart, Boehner tells the camera with a roguish cock of the head, “Now, I only cook my bird to about 160, max.” He adds, “And then I take it out and I put foil over it and let it sit for at least an hour,” punctuating his culinary strategy with a subtle finger point like a scat singer acknowledging a fan on the Las Vegas strip. The video also includes footage of Boehner in what is presumably his kitchen, wearing a flattering green apron over a crisp shirt far too white for messy cooking. But what’s the real secret to the turkey brine? “Sixteen ounces of _pure_ maple syrup,” Boehner says. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3607265/john-boehner-turkey-video-thanksgiving/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3607265/john-boehner-turkey-video-thanksgiving/"},"headline":"Watch John Boehner Tell You How To Cook Your Turkey","datePublished":"2014-11-26T15:02:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:14:51.434Z","description":"House Speaker reveals the secret to the perfect turkey brine, and it actually sounds pretty good","url":"https://time.com/3607265/john-boehner-turkey-video-thanksgiving/","keywords":["Newsfeed","politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt867d017a92b4f34d/69876b3355a859215fa845ad/john-boehner-brine-recipe.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt867d017a92b4f34d/69876b3355a859215fa845ad/john-boehner-brine-recipe.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"john boehner brine recipe","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3607265/john-boehner-turkey-video-thanksgiving/","name":"Watch John Boehner Tell You How To Cook Your Turkey"}}]}] ```