How Long Must We Drink This Drink? Mary, Bloody Marys

Let me tell you all a story. This is the story of a young boy who, for whatever reason, loved tomato juice. The two would sit together for hours on end, just enjoying the savory flavor of one another. The boy gave the tomato juice much needed attention, and the tomato juice gave the boy much needed vitamins.

The pair may have very well grown old together, if not for the fact that the boy eventually moved on. He stopped liking tomato juice, and the tomato juice, like so many 30-year-old ex-wives of multimillionaires, found itself used and unwanted. The tomato juice spent its time alone for the next several years, and the boy went on to pull the tomatoes off of his hamburgers like every American should.

Good readers — allow me to blow your mind. That boy was… wait for it… ME! Didn’t see that coming, did you?

Knowing that back story, you can imagine my hesitation in deciding to drink Bloody Marys this week. Though this is the undisputed king (or, more appropriately, queen) of savory cocktails, a sworn-by hangover cure, and beloved by many, I’m not a fan. To add on to that, a lot of the variations are, well, kind of disgusting unless you have the taste for it. If you like Bloody Marys, great! It’s just not my thing, much in the same way that drinking tar is not my thing.

So here I am, putting myself through drunken horror just for your amusement. I hope you appreciate it.

Also, a note on variations: there are a lot of them. This little adventure barely scratches the surface. But, on top of variations of the basic recipe, realize that there a lot of different ingredients that you can throw in to change up the drink some. Some common ingredients that I didn’t use for my recipes include black pepper, cayenne pepper, lime juice, horseradish, and a whole lot more. Feel free to add some of those ingredients or some others if so moved.

Also, if you don’t have one of the ingredients for a Bloody Mary, you can probably skip it. It’ll be a little bland, but all you really need for a Bloody Mary is vodka and tomato juice. I wouldn’t recommend that, but then again, I wouldn’t recommend a Bloody Mary to begin with, so do what you want.

Anyway, I won’t keep you all waiting. You know, I keep thinking to myself that there are a few drinks that are such classics that I will do multiple posts about them. Eventually I might do Rum and Cokes again. I’ll definitely do more than one Martini post, and Gin and Tonics might claim several weeks if I can find some good variations.

Someone will have to pay me to do Bloody Marys again. This was the worst. I hope you enjoy it.

Let us begin.

Contents

Bloody Mary

  • 2 oz Vodka
  • 4 oz Tomato Juice
  • 1/2 oz Lemon Juice
  • 2 to 3 dashes Tabasco Sauce
  • 2 to 3 dashes Worcestershire Sauce
  • Salt
  • Lemon Wedge
  • Celery Stick

bloody-maryWell, here it is. It’s salty, it’s juicy, and it’s kind of like drinking alcoholic soup. It’s got a good devoted following, so I guess I shouldn’t knock it too much, but I can’t help but feel like there’s other things I should be doing with my vodka.

I know I just said that all you really need for a Bloody Mary is vodka and tomato juice, but you shouldn’t do it that way. You definitely want some of the other ingredients to spice it up and make it more interesting. Drinking a Bloody Mary without that extra stuff is kind of like eating jelly without peanut butter. It’s bland and insipid, like having a party without Spice Girls music.

So, you can either build this drink in the glass and stir, or shake it and strain it. I chose the latter. Shake the first five ingredients with ice and strain the mixture into a tall ice-filled glass. Add salt to taste and stir briefly. Squeeze the lemon wedge over the drink and drop it in. Finally, garnish it with the celery stick.

Also, you make all of these drinks the same way, so I’m not going to repeat myself every time I make a new drink. Just refer back here if you get confused — I know it can be daunting.

Onward!

Bloody Caesar

  • 2 oz Vodka
  • 2 oz Tomato Juice
  • 2 oz Clam Juice
  • 1/2 oz Lemon Juice
  • 2 to 3 oz Tabasco Sauce
  • 2 to 3 oz Worcestershire Sauce
  • Salt
  • Lemon Wedge
  • Celery Stick

bloody-mary-bloody-caesarClamato juice is a combination of equal parts clam juice and tomato juice. You can buy it pre-mixed or get both ingredients separately and mix them together yourself.

However, unless you happen to have a blog about mixed drinks, I don’t know why you would do either of those things, because clamato juice is incredibly awful. I hear that this is what they use to water board terrorists now, because they decided simulating drowning with regular water wasn’t harsh enough. If Hell ever freezes over, it will be with ice made of clamato juice.

This drink is also known as a Clamdigger, but why the fuck would you care about that when there isn’t enough vodka in the world to make this monstrosity palatable?

I drank it all, by the way. I’m as committed to authenticity as the inventor of this drink was committed to committing legal atrocities.

If you really like clam juice for whatever weird reason, go ahead and try it. Otherwise, please, let’s move on.

Bloody Hogger

  • 2 oz Bakon Bacon-Flavored Vodka
  • 4 oz Tomato Juice
  • 1/2 oz Lemon Juice
  • 2 to 3 dashes Tabasco Sauce
  • 2 to 3 dashes Worcestershire Sauce
  • Salt
  • Lemon Wedge
  • Celery Stick

bloody-mary-bloody-hoggerBacon-flavored vodka sounds like a really good idea, right? Bacon is great. Vodka is great. The two ought to compliment each other like champagne and lube. But, alas, it really is quite a rough drink on its own. Bakon can make a few good cocktails, though (try it with pineapple juice and butterscotch schnapps), so I was hopeful. However, this really isn’t one of those good cocktails, but probably because of the fact that its a Bloody Mary not because it uses Bakon.

It’s just too much. A good cocktail has subtlety. You want the flavor of your drink to have a noticeable flavor, and a few other delicate flavors and notes dancing in the background like beautiful ballerinas building a house of cards on an angel’s breast. You don’t want your cocktail to kick your tongue in the balls with a pair of spiked boots. The Bloody Mary is really strong and robust anyway, but with bacon-flavored vodka it’s just too strong. It’s like watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie while gnawing on raw pork.

If you legitimately like the flavor of Bakon, you’ll probably like this. If not, it’s liable to make you gag some.

Bloody Murder

  • 2 oz Gin
  • 4 oz Tomato Juice
  • 1/2 oz Lemon Juice
  • 2 to 3 dashes Black Vinegar
  • 1/8 tsp Wasabi
  • Salt
  • Lemon Wedge
  • Celery Stick

 

bloody-mary-bloody-murderVinegar! And I do mean holy-fucking-shit vinegar. To give you an idea of how strong the vinegar is in this, know that I can’t taste the wasabi. At all. Or the gin. At all. I can really only taste tomato-y vinegar. This is a sentence I never thought I would type to an audience of anonymous strangers, but drinking Worcestershire sauce is a much better idea than drinking vinegar.

I’m gonna level with you, folks. These highball drinks aren’t getting me drunk enough to get through all of these concoctions. If I wasn’t a purist, I’d be shooting whiskey right now to get myself in a mood where I could handle this stuff. In fact, shooting straight whiskey is probably a better and healthier idea than drinking vinegar-based drinks. And tastier. Who knew that a blog where I get drunk every week would lead to bad decisions?

So, if you can get the proportions right so that the wasabi is a stronger flavor, this might be a neat drink if you’re into Bloody Marys, ’cause wasabi is a pretty neat little thing. It’s still weird that someone would think to make a drink like this in the first place, of course, but to each their own.

Also, if you’re like me, and you waited until the last minute and can’t find black vinegar at Harris Teeter and you don’t feel like going to the international food market to look for it, balsamic vinegar works as a replacement.

Now get ready for these last two variations, because we’re done with tomato juice! (WHAT? How is that even possible?)

Bloody LeRoy

  • 2 oz Vodka
  • 4 oz Barbecue Sauce (you read that right)
  • 1/2 oz Lemon Juice
  • 2 to 3 dashes Tabasco Sauce
  • 2 to 3 dashes Worcestershire Sauce
  • Salt
  • Lemon Wedge
  • Celery Stick

bloody-mary-bloody-leroySo, apparently this a thing. The fact that this is a thing is a pretty good reason why the human race is probably better off exterminated, but, nonetheless, this is still a thing. Thank you, America.

Drinking barbecue sauce is one of those ideas that only fat stoners get — and then later regret.

That being said, I actually prefer this cocktail to the regular Bloody Mary. When I was a kid, I discovered that any inedible food can be made edible by simply smothering it in barbecue sauce. It worked wonders when my grandparents cooked. Anyway, apparently that rule is still true, and it even applies to cocktails. I’m really not sure how I feel about that.

The extra ingredients make it a little weird (I mean, weirder than it already is), but it’s not all that terrible. Of course, I’m the guy who decided to willingly drink spiced barbecue sauce and vodka, so maybe you should take whatever I say with a grain of salt. I mean, there’s no way to drink this without feeling like a disgusting fatass, even if it does taste alright.

So, it’s spicier than a regular Bloody Mary, but it also went down easier for me. I didn’t shake and strain this, by the way, because I thought the barbecue sauce would be too thick for that. So I built it in the glass and stirred it. I also used about an ounce of lemon juice instead of the regular half ounce to help thin it out more.

Try it if you have no shame. Chances are you won’t completely regret, a fact for which I am sorry.

Commander White

  • 2 oz Vodka
  • 4 oz Pineapple Juice
  • 1/2 oz Lemon Juice
  • 2 to 3 dashes Tabasco Sauce
  • 2 to 3 dashes Worcestershire Sauce
  • Salt
  • Lemon Wedge
  • Celery Stick

bloody-mary-commander-whiteHave you ever thought to yourself “Gee, this pineapple juice sure is good, but it would be vastly improved by such savory characters as the sauces Tabasco and Worcestershire.” If you have, then you are an asshole, and I don’t want to be friends with you anymore.

But also, if you have, you might like this drink.

This is smoother than the tomato juice versions, but really, why would you do this to pineapple juice? What has it ever done to you to deserve this? Pineapple juice can be improved by a lot of things, and salt isn’t one of them.

And that brings me to an important point. A good mixed drink ought to be an improvement on its ingredients. This drink is improved by the pineapple juice, but the pineapple juice is not improved by being a part of this drink.

Now that I think about it, this is true of all of these drink recipes: The sum is less than its parts. Many will disagree with me, but the Bloody Mary just doesn’t perform the way a cocktail should. A cocktail ought to take the individual ingredients and turn them into something better than what they are alone. All of the ingredients of a Bloody Mary — even the condiments — taste better on their own. Fan of the drink will of course disagree, but that’s why I think I hate this drink.

So, drink this version and the other drinks if you must. If you enjoy Bloody Marys, good for you, but in all honesty, I don’t trust you. Pick a better cocktail.

Denouement

So, kids, what have we learned this week? I learned that old friendships with former tastes cannot always be reforged, as tomato juice is now disgusting to me. I also learned that barbecue sauce is the eternal savior of bad dishes, even when it shouldn’t be.

Mostly I learned that I hate Bloody Marys, and I will likely never want to taste one again. Though something tells me I will at some point, and that’s as good a reason as any to fear the future.

Good luck drinkers, and drink responsibly!