Is Your Bloody Mary Really the Best?
September 9, 2007
Bloody Marys come in all shapes and sizes, and as Keith of Moving at the Speed of Life and
Sometimes, I wonder if people who claim to make the best Bloody Mary have ever tasted other versions of this drink. I tend to think that many Bloody Mary “champion’s” claims of superiority are based on some gimmicky ingredient, extravagant garnish, or a complete lack of understanding towards the components of a good drink. Like any other cocktail, Bloody Marys benefit from a basic understanding of three fundamental cocktail principles:
1) Use fresh ingredients. As Dash of Bitters stressed this week, tomato juice comes from tomatoes, not cans. In some instances, exclusively using fresh ingredients can become too costly or require access to fields and farmers markets, but in this situation, we’re dealing with tomatoes. They are cheap and available; you’ve got no excuse.
2) Balance your ingredients. A good drink should not be dominated by a singular ingredient. Cocktails should have levels, allowing you to ponder the ingredients and how they dance together. Each dance has a different taste that stresses different elements greater than others. Tango? Waltz? Macarena? It all depends on what you’re in the mood for, but nobody likes to dance alone. In other words, making your Bloody Mary taste like a steak is not a good idea.
3) Make it look good. Grandiose or simple, a Bloody Mary should not be a liquid foundation for a weird type of culinary Jenga in which people pile an endless amount of food items on top of the glass, forcing the consumer to carefully disassemble the beverage/meal to avoid a collapse and ruined new shirt. The garnish should be distinct, decorative, and add an element to the cocktail that creates another dimension of balance. If your garnish does not help achieve greater equilibrium or upsets the balance, you need to reconsider your approach.
These cocktail principles are in no way exclusive, but they are the most violated rules of the Bloody Mary creator. Now think about how many times you have heard claims of Bloody Mary expertise and simultaneously seen a violation of these principles. I would bet that this leaves only about 5% of the self-proclaimed Bloody Mary geniuses left. One reason why people have trouble following good rules of the cocktail creation when making Bloody Marys is that this drink often emphasizes the wrong elements, violating every one of the principles.
Initially, Bloody Mary creators tend to focus exclusively on their tomato juice base and surprisingly never seem to use fresh tomato juice. Popular ingredients such as worcestershire,
It is also important to remember that this tomato base, like any cocktail juice, should balance the included alcohol, in this case vodka. As pointed out before and reinforced by Drink Boston this week, I am not a big fan of stressing the differences between vodka in cocktails. It is a spirit that is produced to be odorless and tasteless which, despite differences in quality, generally does not influence cocktails tremendously. However, vodka does not have to stay this way. Infusions, especially in Bloody Marys, provide a unique opportunity to introduce distinct flavors to your cocktails. By utilizing a great infusion with a carefully considered tomato base, some Bloody Marys might start living up to their hype. My favorite infusion, and one we have started using at th bar, is a Habanero pepper infusion. The spicy reputation of Habanero peppers would seemingly contradict the balance of a good Bloody Mary, but as long as you monitor your infusion and consider the sum of your cocktail parts by adjusting other ingredients accordingly, this Bloody Mary is awesome!
Habanero Infusion
Remove all the stems and seeds from two Habanero peppers. Quarter the Habanero peppers and add one liter of your vodka of choice to a infusion jar, saving the bottle for later. Allow the peppers to sit in the vodka for up to two days, depending on your tolerance for spicy flavors. Stir the infusion twice a day and taste each time to keep track of how spicy the vodka is becoming. When satisfied with the infusion, fine strain the vodka back into the bottle and keep for up to 6 months, or longer, if kept in the fridge.
Bloody Mary creators that have made it this far a generally experienced or extremely careful, but few venture beyond the vodka and tomato juice base. This is a shame because other great possibilities exist. The list is endless, but my favorites next step is the muddling of cilantro with one or two lime wedges. Combined with the pepper flavored vodka, the cilantro and lime qualities make a salsa style Bloody Mary that is as complex as any extravagant evening cocktail.
I didn’t list a specific recipe for my Bloody Mary or give any step-by-step directions because I want this post to simply challenge your conception of the Bloody Mary. I love making Bloody Marys because I get to use ingredients that I don’t touch in any other drink. The possibilities are endless, but they need to follow certain guidelines that are essential to any great drink. If you’re a Bloody Mary “expert” and find that you haven’t been following all of these rules, there is probably some room for improvement in your Bloody Mary. Before your Bloody Mary pride gets all bent out of shape, I’m not saying you don’t make the best; I’m just suggesting ways to make it better. I don’t make the rules; I just drink by them.
Your post was from the best time of year for fresh tomato juice and it is a crime to not take advantage of that for the frshest and best tasting tomato products. But, you should make note that outside of the months of August - September (tomato season) you will get a far superior flavor from a canned / bottled tomato juice. Using anemic Mexican grown tomatoes in January for “fresh” tomato juice is xompletely backwards.
Maybe I just need to buy better tomato juice then…thanks for the tip!