Tag: Vodka

The History Of The Bloody Mary.

The Bloody Mary originated in 1920s Paris, France, by Fernand Petiot while working at The New York Bar. This bar would later become the famous Harry’s New York Bar after Harry MacElhone bought it. Fernand came up with the Bloody Mary as a kind of a hair of the dog drink to cure hangovers, and the popular myth states it was none other than the famous drunk Ernest Hemingway who Fernand first made the cocktail for. While that is likely not true, it’s still fun to imagine.

After prohibition ended, Fernand Petiot immigrated to New York and served his signature cocktail at The King Cole Bar at the St. Regis Hotel. The Bloody Mary was still just tomato juice and vodka in France, but New Yorkers were not impressed. They found the drink flat, two-dimensional, and too tomato-y. They suggested he somehow spice it up a bit. English being his second language, he took the suggestion literally. He added hot sauce, salt and pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. The spiced-up remake was a hit. More and more people began ordering Fernand’s Bloody Mary but the St. Regis Hotel found the name too vulgar for its high-class clientele. They tried to change the name to The Red Snapper, but it was too late. The cocktail had expanded beyond the hotel’s walls, and the public knew it as the Bloody Mary.

What Does a Bloody Mary Taste Like?

People’s opinion of a Bloody Mary is typically binary. They either love them or hate them. It’s not your typical cocktail because, unlike other cocktails that are sweet, sour, refreshing, earthy, or herbal, the Bloody Mary is creamy and savory. The Bloody Mary has a creamy full body mouthfeel; it’s salty and sweet with bright red tomato and umami flavors. Understandably, some people find this an off-putting taste for a cocktail since it’s so different. Personally, I am put off when the tomato flavor is too strong, but I love this cocktail when there is much more Worcestershire and horseradish in the drink. Like buying a jar of spaghetti sauce, just because you don’t like one brand does not mean you dislike spaghetti entirely. Maybe the issue isn’t the flavors of the drink but the proportions and balance of those flavors. If made right, this can be a delicious drink. Unless you find a Bloody Mary mixer you like, it’s best to make it from scratch exactly the way you want.

Using Bloody Mary Mix Vs Making It From Scratch.

If you are wondering whether to buy a mix or make it from scratch, it tastes best and is almost the same amount of work. You probably already have most of the ingredients in your pantry and fridge. Also, if you can drive to the store to buy a mixer, you can buy tomato juice and spices. Some mixers taste good, but they cost 2 to 3 times as much as just getting the ingredients and a cheap mixer tastes cheap. In addition, making it yourself provides you with much more control over the taste and final product.

Now, if you’re wondering whether to use V8 or Tomato juice, then that is up to you and a matter of preference. V8 is fine and gives the drink a more herbal tomato soup-like taste, while using regular tomato juice gives it a cleaner, brighter tomato taste. They’re cheap ingredients, so try both and see which you prefer.

Is The Bloody Mary A Hangover Cure?

The Bloody Mary was originally a “hair of the dog” cocktail. The hair of the dog was a 19th-century English expression for saying that one can heal a wound by applying a part of the thing that did the damage to the injury. It came from the idea that if you were bit by a dog, then putting some of the dog’s hair in the bite would help keep the wound from getting infected. In the case of a hangover, a hair of the dog cocktail is one you drink the following day to help ease the pain. As you start to sober up, your brain starts to register what you just did to yourself. This keeps you from fully sobering up. It’s supposed to give you just enough of a buzz to numb you till the brunt of the hangover passes. That being said, the Bloody Mary is a pretty good hangover drink. The Bloody Mary provides electrolytes, vitamins, enough booze to buzz, enough fluid to help hydrate lightly, and spices for pain relief. Salt provides the electrolytes. Tomato juice is high in vitamin C, E, and potassium. Lemon juice is high in vitamin C. Worcestershire sauce has B vitamins, niacin, and vitamin C. Horseradish is also very high in antioxidants. The hot sauce has capsaicin, which is often used as pain relief since capsaicin turns off the neurotransmitters that are currently telling the brain it’s in pain—like Tylenol. 

The Most Important Ingredient.

The most essential ingredient in this cocktail is the spices you use to balance the tomato juice and the number of spices you use. Like the 1930s New Yorkers who told Fernand Petiot to spice the drink up because it was too tomato-y, You are trying to enrich and balance the tomato juice flavor with spices. It doesn’t take much Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, or horseradish to change the flavor drastically, but the right amount will blend evenly with the tomato juice. Too little spice makes for a flat drink, and too much is overwhelming. I got better at making this drink the more I cooked in the kitchen and learned not to fear cooking with spices. When creating a Bloody Mary, the most common problem people make is under-spice it, and the drink ends up too tomato-y, flavorless, and flat. This leads many people to think they hate bloody Marys. Taste is unique to everyone, so under spiced to one is perfect for someone else, but my advice is to taste each ingredient individually and experiment with flavors and proportions. If the taste is incorrect, add what it needs to make it right. This isn’t an easy drink to get right, so don’t if it’s not quite right, don’t be discouraged; keep trying.

The History Of The Screwdriver.

The screwdriver has two familiar origin stories, and both are probably wrong. One story I have read is that laborers or oil rig workers used to use screwdrivers to stir their morning drink long ago, and another claims US marines invented it in WWII. There is no evidence to back those ideas up, and counter to those ideas is that vodka was rarely used in cocktails before the invention of the Moscow mule in 1941. It’s doubtful that US soldiers were mixing vodka cocktails in the early 40s and even less likely that oil rig workers were mixing with it.

In David Embury’s 1948 book “The Fine Art Of Mixing” he claims the screwdriver is just the orange blossom cocktail with vodka instead of gin. This makes sense because, after the popularity of the Moscow mule, many bartenders tried finding other drinks that could be made with vodka other than the Moscow mule or Bloody Mary. An easy solution was to replace gin with vodka. The iconic vodka martini was invented around this time, and David Embury printed in his vodka section a list of gin cocktails that sometimes substitute vodka. He concluded the vodka section by saying he has no idea why anyone would want to replace gin for vodka as it is a flavorless dull spirit that adds nothing to a drink. I can easily see someone simply replacing the gin for vodka in orange blossom and giving it a funky name like the screwdriver.

If the screwdriver truly is just an orange blossom with vodka, then his recipe is not the common one used today. Unfortunately, he does not provide a direct recipe but says to make an orange blossom with vodka instead of gin. The classic orange blossom recipe is 1:1 orange juice and gin shaken in a shaker and strained into a cocktail glass. Typically it’s measured out to 2 oz gin to 2 oz orange juice. The most common recipe used today is a 1:3 Vodka to orange juice highball cocktail. I have never liked the screwdriver and find it a pointless cocktail. It just tastes like rotten orange juice to me. I find David Embury’s 1940s recipe tastes better than the present-day recipe but is still dull. He even says that the orange blossom, and subsequently the screwdriver, is a stupid drink in his book.

The Correct Ratio For A Screwdriver.

The correct ratio for a screwdriver is 1:3 vodka to orange juice if you are making the standard recipe used today. You can adjust these to taste, but for a standard screwdriver, it should be mixed 1:3. Most screwdrivers are larger than 4 oz, so pour 2 oz of vodka and add 6 oz of orange juice into a highball with ice and stir the drink. This maintains the 1:3 ratio but makes a more reasonably sized screwdriver.

Using David Embury’s classic 1940s screwdriver recipe, the ratio is 1:1. His recipe is prepared entirely different, though. This 1940s recipe is 2 oz of vodka and orange juice shaken in a shaker with ice and strained into a cocktail glass.

Recipe Resources

• 1948 The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks – David Embury