For a drink that’s at least 75% tomato juice and 20% alcohol, it’s striking how many opinions, recipes, and debates revolve around the remaining 5%!
By Denny Kallivoka
The best Bloody Mary I’ve ever had was at 69 Colebrooke Row by Tony Conigliaro in London—old-timers will remember it. The menu description was simply “vodka infused with horseradish, mixed with tomato blend,” yet the flavour has ever since been my reference point for a Bloody Mary.
The Bloody Mary is famous for many reasons. One is that it was the drink many—famous names included, Hemingway, for instance—would use to recover from a hangover. And it works. I’m not joking: a Bloody Mary with breakfast when you wake up with your head ringing, and you’re right as rain. It’s chemistry. Plus, you can even count the tomato juice as one of your five-a-day.
Some say the name refers to Mary Tudor, Queen Mary I of England, after the massacres of Protestants. And while the idea of a hangover drink goes back to the Middle Ages and the taverns of the time, the tomato’s culinary virtues belong to a much later chapter of Western culture—let’s not forget it was considered poisonous until the 18th century. The original hangover “cure” was a mix of raw egg, beer, and black pepper, thrown back in one gulp—what we now know as the Prairie Oyster (today often made with whisky or brandy instead of beer).
The canonical Bloody Mary is traditionally said to have been created by George Jessel and later perfected by Fernand Petiot, the first to add spices to what began as vodka with tomato juice. For a decade—the 1940s–50s—the drink was called the Red Snapper, because “Bloody Mary” sounded too fierce, even for an alcoholic drink. The Bloody Mary as we know it today was first made at the St. Regis hotel bar in New York by Petiot, newly arrived from France. It’s what Hemingway, Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe, and Dalí—who were living at the St. Regis at the time—drank, ordering it as a Red Snapper.
Although the Bloody Mary never truly left the conversation, it did go through a slump—until the 2013 remake of The Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio, when all things speakeasy (and “hidden” drinks—tomato juice in this case) enjoyed a fresh renaissance.
Today, good bars treat it with real respect. Bartenders seek out quality ingredients and put their own spin on the base recipe. The essentials for a great Bloody Mary? Excellent base spirits—a vodka or gin with personality—to stand up to the spices rather than disappear; and, of course, balance. Too little horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, celery, and salt, and the drink is flat; too much, and you lose the backbone—the alcohol. Ultimately, though, the Bloody Mary is one of those cocktails that hinges on personal taste: the best one is the one you like.
Is it a gastronomic drink? Absolutely. I think back to the one at Colebrooke Row, and also to Shingo Gokan’s version with vodka, tomato juice, green tomato jam, and a half-rim of salt on the glass—the interplay of salt and tomato created a pitch-perfect umami hit.
In any case, it’s a drink that wakes up your palate before a meal. What would I pair it with? Shellfish, certainly—say, a raw oyster. Otherwise, it loves Mexican and Thai food and other Asian dishes with bold, exotic notes. Sandrae Lawrence once told me it’s “amazing alongside roast beef.”
See here three standout Bloody Marys from Thanos Prunarus, Giannis Petris, and Aristotelis Papadopoulos.
See here three standout Bloody Marys from Thanos Prunarus, Giannis Petris, and Aristotelis Papadopoulos.