Whether you're nursing a sore head or not the Bloody Mary's combination of
salty, savory, spice, a little bit of sweet and acid is so moorish.
There are also many variations of this
classic pick me up so please comment below if there's one in particular you'd
like us to tackle.
The man usually credited with the Bloody Mary
is Fernand Petiot, a french-born bartender
at Harry's New York Bar in Paris. The story goes that the revolution in
Russia had forced many Russians to flee and they fled holding their bottles of
vodka introducing it wherever they ended up, including Paris.
Fernand had been trying to figure out how to use this new spirit,
canned tomato juice was also a fairly new invention
and so in a stroke of mad genius he combined the two with some added seasonings.
There's also a claim from the comedian
George Jessel who says that he mixed vodka and tomato juice in the kind of
inspiration which only ever strikes when you're still
awake at 8 a.m after a night of hard drinking.
What's most likely is that the combination of vodka and tomato juice
existed whether invented by Jessel or not but Petiot was the one who spiced it
up and put it on the map. We'll definitely have to do a deeper
dive on this and the variations like where the Red Snapper comes into it
so if you haven't already hit the subscribe button and the little bell so
you don't miss out when we do.
It may have been invented in Paris but the Bloody Mary is a very American drink.
Petiot himself took it over to the States where it's been a firm favorite ever since.
The recipes and garnishes have got
bigger and wilder in a very American way and it's not uncommon to see ones
garnished with burgers and all sorts nowadays. We're gonna keep it nice and simple,
but I can't resist a little sherry twist.
The citrus is really important here to balance out the tomato juice and to make
it actually taste like a cocktail rather than just a soup.
There are also some who argue that it needs a little bit of sweetness to
balance it out. I kind of think there's enough in the
tomato juice anyway but those of you with a sweeter tooth might want to try a
PX sherry instead of salty Manzania. That's a really good variation,
I'm just all about the salt the morning after the night before so I keep mine really savory.
But definitely try experimenting even
something like a little maple syrup, you'll only need about a bar
spoon to be able to taste the difference. So first we're gonna squeeze some fresh
lemon juice and then we're gonna go for some vodka I'm using this Hellfire
which is a Tasmanian vodka made from potatoes,
so it's quite savoury and has quite a lot of body so obviously works really
well in this cocktail but really any nice clean vodka that you
have is gonna be perfect.
20 mils of Worcester sauce this is pretty Worcester heavy I'm not gonna lie,
that's how I like it you're definitely welcome to to
knock it back a little bit, also I'm definitely cheating by just calling it
Worcester sauce and not trying to say the whole thing-
Worcestershire.
15 mls of lemon juice. Your seasonings, so a good pinch or a
good grind of black pepper, these are all obviously tan of to taste
it just depends if you like things to be sort of strong flavored or not.
I'm using celery salt especially because I don't use celery as the actual garnish
it just adds that really nice kind of vegetal note.
It's not necessary, normal salt's totally fine, it's just kind of like using celery
in a stock like it just has that nice little
backbone of flavor. A pinch of that.
Six dashes of Tabasco or to taste.
The way I usually deal with the Tabasco
and spicy kind of thing is asking people how spicy they like
their bloody mary on a scale of one to ten
and then however many they say that's how many dashes I do,
um so yeah about five is kind of pretty medium spice and then anything up from
that's going to get a little bit spicier you can obviously experiment with other
hot sauces as well, I tend to like it about a six.
And finally your tomato juice. 90 ml of tomato juice.
I'm gonna do a little olive for my garnish so I'm gonna get that skewered
before we start throwing this.
Now we're just going to fill this up with ice but we're not going to shake this
cocktail as it will mess up the texture of the tomato juice and make it too thin
and foamy. We're not going to stir it though either
as it does need some aeration otherwise the tomato juice stays too thick.
Use your julep strainer. Just sit it on top of the ice and make
sure you're holding it in nice and firmly and just pour
into the other tin. You don't have to do it too much you are obviously
serving this on ice anyway so it's going to continue to dilute
so it's really just to get that nice little bit of aeration in there.
You can also keep it nice and slow and controlled. Do this back and forth about
five times and it should be good to go. If this sounds a little bit scary or if
you have cream carpets then try sealing the tins as usual but
just gently rolling the tins around instead of shaking.
Get your nice chilled glass out of the fridge or freezer.
Depending how bad you are you can dab it on your temples as well
if you like. Fill with ice and pour your Bloody Mary in.
Then just going to grab your Manzanilla and over the back of your spoon just
pour in just about five or ten mils. Pop in whatever extra garnish you're
going for, so I'm gonna do a little rosemary.
A little bit of thyme. Make sure it's right up beside the straw so that you're
gonna get all of those lovely fresh herbal aromas in your nose
every time you go for a sip and hopefully it'll revitalize you.
Pop in your olive because let's face it you probably
need a little salty snack at this point. The Bloody Mary, so now you know.
Now obviously I have the straw in there and I'm going to use that later but I do
like my first sip to be directly through the little Manzanilla float.
I mean what's not to like? It just, it feels like it's replenishing you like
everything that you lost the night before you're getting back from the
tomato juice and a little bit of spice all the seasonings. I definitely don't
think there's any point kind of holding back on the salt and the pepper and
stuff and this like it's it's meant to be a bit of an
over-the-top drink and that's obviously why I have so much Worcester sauce in there
I think it's only ever you know it's
something that you only ever have one of, I never really understand when people
have heaps, it's kind of just like one and you're done.
It's got you back to the place where you're
meant to be and it's probably my Irish heritage but
that potato vodka as well so delicious.