How to Not Make a Bloody Mary

It’s easy to get carried away when mixing a bloody Mary. Hailed as the queen of cocktails, this brunch time favorite is among the most complex of cocktails.  But, let’s keep a cool head here. As its popularity has grown, so has the list of items placed in, on top of, and next to the bloody Mary.

We’ve all enjoyed the burgeoning garnish race. Artists like Sarah Jayne Pickart of Wild and Crazy Gourmet Bloody Mary’s have brought the embellishment of the drink to a culinary art form. Comedians and bloggers have mocked the trend with terms like garnouflage and posted photos of bloody’s adorned with entire pepperoni pizzas.

The team at MBFBM has come to appreciate these extreme garnishes as a welcome development in the bloodymarysphere. It brings attention to the drink and truly adds to the experience.  A line must be drawn though.  What happens beneath all that celery, pickled potpourri, tater tots, and Powerball tickets truly matters.

So before you go reaching for that bottle of Korean marinade, lets take a look at what does not belong in a bloody Mary.  Feel free to add your own least favorite ingredients in the comments.

Before listing our least preferred ingredients, lets get a large animal out of the room.  (We like elephants.)  Whenever possible, start from scratch with real tomato juice.  If, for some reason, you must use a pre-mix, stop. Add ice and vodka.  Heck, go ahead and give it a lemon twist, but then, stop!  There’s nothing worse than getting an over-engineered bloody Mary. The practice of adding additional ingredients to a premix is one we call, shit-piling.

So you have your ice.  You have tomato juice. After you take a look at what we recommend putting in your bloody Mary, consider these marvelous items that have no business in it:

• Pickle juice
• Olive juice
• Steak sauce
• Salt
• Oregano (Save it for your spaghetti.)
• BBQ sauce
• Your finger
• Less than a full glass of ice
• More than a pinch of celery salt
• Roses lime juice (Use the real stuff.  Come on man!)
• Your anger.  (Never mix angry)
• Anything that you cannot find in mom’s kitchen (e.g.MSG)
• Parmesan cheese (On the rim? fine)
• Shards of glass. (This is no substitute for ice- Lesson learned!)
• Horseradish if you haven’t asked first
• An inverted bottle of Corona.  WTF is that?

Have we forgotten anything…?