The IP multicast architecture was not widely deployed because multicast address allocation is difficult and there is no scalable solution to inter-domain multicast routing. Hence, there is an interest in developing protocols that allow the progressive deployment of the multicast service by supporting unicast clouds. This paper proposes HBH (hop-by-hop multicast routing protocol). HBH adopts the source-specific channel abstraction to simplify address allocation and implements multicast distribution using recursive unicast trees. In this model, data packets have unicast destination addresses. Therefore, HBH supports pure unicast routers transparently. The branching-nodes recursively create packet copies to implement the distribution. HBH constructs a shortest-path tree even in the presence of asymmetric unicast routing. Consequently, HBH provides best routes in asymmetric networks, and is suitable for an eventual implementation of QoS-based routing. Additionally HBH reduces tree bandwidth consumption in asymmetric networks when compared to other approaches. The results obtained from simulation support our statements.