Building a Better Bloody Mary
You can tell a lot about a person from his or her choice in a Bloody Mary. Some people try a little too hard to butch up the drink with seven kinds of hot sauce. Others are all about flair, bedazzling the drink with enough garnish to decorate Carmen Miranda’s hat. And a certain segment of the population just likes drinking at breakfast.
I suppose my style of Bloody Mary reveals both trust and control issues. I don’t trust the bartender to make the drink for me most places; I’d prefer to control the process at the make-your-own Bloody Mary bar. I want the drink to have a perfect combination of savory flavors, with a dash of olive brine and the tiniest pinch of celery salt. I don’t like the saltiness of a Dirty Martini or even olives in the drink (“Can I get those on the side?” I’ll ask,) but when you add savory tomato juice to the situation then all my issues are going to come out.
These days savory cocktails are all the rage in experimental bars. I’ve consumed drinks with carrot juice, cucumbers, yogurt, and even mustard - but those weren’t Bloody Marys. Savory additions to that drink mostly involve mixing meat into it, with beef bullion and clam juice inside the cocktail and bacon and shrimp on top as garnish. Some bartenders are infusing vodka with bacon, though that often leads to gloppy vodka.
But that’s all recent history. The Bloody Mary’s history goes back to 1920 or 1939 (or some other date) depending on whose story you believe. Like most of the famous cocktails of today, its origin is in dispute. It may have been created in France; maybe New York. It may have originally been made with vodka, or maybe with gin.
Today some call the gin version a Red Snapper; the tequila version a Bloody Maria; sake in the Bloody Geisha, and so on. No matter what you call it, there are plenty of ways to adjust the recipe to your personal taste. Within the vodka family, flavored or infused vodkas go great in this drink - citrus flavors like lemon and even lime can work, and you can sometimes find special edition chipotle flavored vodka, or the more readily available pepper (Peppar) flavor.
Speaking of spicy, I love wasabi paste, horseradish, and muddled jalapeno and red bell peppers in the drink. You can also infuse them in vodka overnight - I’ve tried them all, and they were each differently delicious. Ethnic hot sauces for Asian and Latin cuisine are great in the drink, as are savory soy, Worcestershire, and steak sauces. Outside the glass, I say the more the merrier - more olives, pickled green beans, celery stalks, lemon wedges, cucumbers, tomolives, etc. I even like salt and pepper and more celery salt around the rim. Bring it on.
Now that I see my Bloody Mary drink preferences all written down - hot and savory and a whole salad as garnish - it’s clear I don’t have control issues at all. I think I’m just a big old glutton.
Hangover Helper
In addition to being painful, hangovers are a waste of time. I’ve got things to do in the morning - work, exercise, brunch cocktails - and it’s much harder to do those things with a churning stomach and throbbing headache.
For a cocktail writer, hangovers are an occupational hazard. I try to attend every restaurant opening, tasting session, open bar party, brand launch, bartender brunch, and after-party in whatever city I happen to be in. But I rarely endure hangovers the next day because I make a vigilant effort to avoid them. Here’s how:
Eat first. If dinner isn’t part of your plan for a night out, make it your plan for the pre-party. Food in the stomach helps slow the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, but it does more than that. I drink more when I’m hungry, filling my stomach with liquids instead of solids, so I always try to grab a snack on the way to the bar. Also, if I have a belly full of food there isn’t room for a six-pack of beer in there.
Hydrate. Surely you know that much of a hangover is caused by dehydration, yet still you do not drink enough water. Order a glass of water with every drink and not only will you stay hydrated, you’ll spend more time peeing instead of drinking. Drink water before you go out and more when you get back from the bar. Water is your friend.
Watch the caffeine. Most people underestimate their level of sobriety when combining caffeine with alcohol. If you dink five Rum and Cokes you’re likely to feel less buzzed than you would on six shots of rum, though you’ll have just as much liquor in your system. Additionally, all the sugar in flavored sodas contributes to a hangover, so if you’re having more than a couple of drinks watch your mixers too.
Drink lighter. Consider consuming beverages with less alcohol if you’re planning to drink more than a few. One beer has the same quantity of alcohol as an ounce and half of a spirit like vodka, but at the average gay bar they pour two or three times the standard amount of vodka into the glass. (Admittedly, this is a great from a bargain drinking standpoint.) Or try a non-alcoholic cocktail in between drinks - try bitters and soda, or soda water with a splash of cranberry and lime. These give the experience of a standard cocktail without contributing to the next day’s ruin.
Drink better, not more. Top-shelf spirits tend to have less hangover-causing congeners than those mystery bottles poured from the drink well. Additionally, if you order fancy cocktails from the drink menu you may spend more time savoring the drink instead of slurping it up through the straw.
Skip out early. Nothing good ever happens at the after-hours party anyway. The later you stay out the more trouble you’ll get into, and the more of the next day you’ll miss. And nobody wants to miss brunch.
Camper English is a cocktails and spirits writer and publisher of Alcademics.com.
