032 – Bloody Mary

Sydney Covid ‘lock-down’ exploration of the ‘Bloody Mary’, perhaps the best known ‘morning after the night before’ group of cocktails.

Lockdown has inspired me to explore this famous cocktail. Let’s take a look at the classic ‘Bloody Mary’ cocktail, and explore some of the cocktail’s history and construction. I am also going to explain my preferred way of making a ‘Bloody Mary’, with a healthy amount of spiciness.

Make your own ‘mix-at-home’ Locktail, the ‘Bloody Mary’, and spice it up a bit if you wish.

METHOD – You can mix in the drinking glass, but especially if you are making more than one for your ‘hung-over’ friends, start with a larger mixing glass. Add 45ml Vodka, 100ml of Tomato Juice (fresh is best if you can make your own, just blend very ripe tomatoes, strain and refrigerate), approximately 15ml of fresh lemon juice, 3 or 4 good dashes of Worcestershire Sauce, 4 to 6 dashes of the Bitter Truth’s Celery Bitters (optional but amazing), 2 to 4 drops of Tabasco Sauce (start light, you can always add more) and salt and pepper to taste. Mix with ice and then strain into a large glass, a highball, double-rocks, wine or glass goblet with ice in the glass. Garnish with a stick of celery.

For a spicier option, add some Bittermens’ Hellfire Habanero Shrub (4 to 8 drops), and increase the amount of Tabasco Sauce and Pepper to suit your personal spiciness preference. You can go even hotter if you want and add some fresh chilli if you really want some heat, however too much can diminish the tomato, lemon and celery flavours.

HISTORICAL NOTES – There is a very good and detailed piece on the origins of the ‘Bloody Mary’ on Simon Difford’s site ‘Difford’s Guide’, here, which was researched by Jack McGarry in 2012. It was most probably by either Fernand Petiot (1900–1975), at the New York Bar in Paris, France in around 1921, or by George Jessel (1898–1983), an American actor and socialite in the USA in around 1927. It really depends on how much weight you put on different elements of the contemporary cocktail’s construction. As there were plenty of other vodka and tomato juice, or non-alcoholic ‘spiced-up tomato juice’ mixed drinks floating around even earlier than these two incidents.

Both Fernand Petiot and George Jessel had significant roles in promoting the ‘Bloody Mary’, however the creation of a ‘tomato juice’ based cocktail was most likely in the USA, due to the far more regular use of tomato juice as an ingredient. The recipe has also moved around a great deal since it first appeared in print in 1946 in Lucius Beebe’s ‘Stork Club Bar Book’.

THE OFFICIAL MIX – The ‘Bloody Mary’ is one of the International Bartender Association’s (IBA) ‘Contemporary Classics’, here. The recipe calls for 45ml Vodka, 90ml Tomato Juice, 15ml fresh Lemon Juice, 2-dashes Worcestershire Sauce, as well as Tabasco, Celery Salt and Pepper (to personal taste). Stirred in a mixing glass and poured into a rocks glass or alternatively a highball glass with ice. Garnished with celery and a lemon wedge (optional).

TASTING NOTES – This is another cocktail in the ‘love them’ or ‘hate them’ category, with a lot of additional personal ‘wriggle room’ in relation to the spiciness of the mix. Tabasco is a very hot (spicy) sauce and there is a gulf of difference between one-drop and a few big dashes. Tomato juice, Worcestershire Sauce, and Celery also have their fans and foes, and mixing all of these together can progressively reduce the ‘intersection of the Venn-diagram’ as to those left loving the resulting combination.

At one extreme, this is slightly lemon flavoured alcoholic tomato juice, at the other extreme, this can be one of the spiciest (hottest) cocktails around. I am a fan of spicy, very spicy, so if you break into a sweat just by seeing a ‘chilli’, this may not be the cocktail for you. Even if you like spicy, you may wish to dial my recipe down a few notches on your first mix. For that reason I have given the ‘super-spicy’ additions as options. They are not options for me, they are the whole reason I like this cocktail. 🌶️🌶️🌶️

LOCKTAIL CHANGES – Starting with the International Bartender Association (IBA) recipe, which is a pretty generally accepted mix, including the de rigueur Worcestershire and Tabasco Sauces, both of which are, I believe, must have ingredients. Rather than ‘Celery Salt’, I would prefer to use the Bitter Truth’s Celery Bitters, an amazing addition to a ‘Bloody Mary’, as well as Bittermens’ Hellfire Habanero Shrub, which I guess makes this a ‘Blood Hot Mary’. Other adjustments in volume of lemon juice, and amounts of salt, pepper and the spicier elements are really to personal choice, but some warmth is part of the ‘Bloody Mary’ experience.

YOUR LOCKTAIL EXPERIENCE – If you’d rather taste than read, I am progressively building an ingredient list and other sourcing information on this site. I will re-use ingredients where I can (good for my budget too), so that the cost goes down overtime if you are ‘playing at home’.

Let me know what you think.

Cocktails you’d like reinvented.

Recipes you’ve tried and your ‘score’.

This is the second of the 1921-1930 (‘roaring twenties’) bracket of ‘Locktail’ remixes. Full list in the index.