I'm continuing to work through our definitive list of the world's Top 100 Cocktails and this week we come to what could arguably be the biggest of them all - certainly a top five contender - the Bloody Mary. I've not looked at our own Bloody Mary recipe for years and upon testing I have to admit to being rather disappointed. Hence, below is my revised recipe which ignores some of the more fashionable ingredients such as horseradish or sherry.
Glass: Collins
Garnish: Salt & pepper rim plus celery stick
Method: Gently ROLL rather than shake all ingredients in a shaker with ice and fine strain into ice-filled glass.
2 shot Ketel One Vodka
3 shot Tomato juice
¼ shot Freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 spoon Monin Pure Cane sugar syrup (2 sugar:1 water)
8 drop Tabasco hot pepper sauce
4 dash Worcestershire sauce
1 grind Black pepper
1 pinch Celery salt
Comment: The classic brunch cocktail.
Origin: You can find one of the most in-depth analyses into the origins of the Bloody Mary in a series of features written by Jack McGarry for CLASS. Click here to read The Bloody History of the Bloody Mary.
Here's the short version: the creation of The Bloody Mary is a matter of some dispute, but is generally credited to Fernand Petiot. Whether this was in 1920 (or 1921), when Petiot was a young bartender at Harry's New York Bar in Paris, or in America, during the 1940s, after the comedian George Jessel had first popularised the un-spiced combination of vodka and tomato juice, is not clear.
If you believe that Petiot first created it around 1920, then you will believe that the name is borrowed not from the English Queen Mary I, whose persecution of Protestants gave her that name, or for the silent movie actress Mary Pickford, but from one of Petiot's customers, apparently the entertainer Roy Barton. He had worked at a nightclub (or knew a bar) called the Bucket of Blood in Chicago, where there was a waitress known as 'Bloody Mary', and he said the drink reminded him of her.
If you believe Petiot invented it in New York, where he worked at the St. Regis Hotel certainly from the end of Prohibition, then he may have had assistance in its creation from Serge Obolansky, the manager of the hotel, who asked him to spice up his 50-50 blend of vodka and tomato juice. According to this version, he attempted to rename the drink Red Snapper, after Vincent Astor, who owned the hotel, found the name too crude for his clientele. (Nowadays a Red Snapper is a Bloody Mary made with gin.)
The celery stick garnish apparently dates back to 1960 when a bartender at the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago noticed a lady stirring her drink with a celery stick.
Whatever the precise story behind this fantastic drink, Bloody Mary recipes are as personal as Martinis. Purists will only use Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, salt and lemon to spice up tomato and vodka but everything from oysters to V8 can be added. Variations include:
Asian Mary (with wasabi, ginger & soy sauce)
Bloody Bull (with beef consommé)
Bloody Caesar (with clam juice)
Bloody Joseph (with Scotch whisky)
Bloody Maria (with tequila)
Bloody Maru (with sake)
Bloody Shame (without alcohol)
Bullshot (with beef bouillon)
Cubanita (with rum)
Red Snapper (with gin)
The Bobby Burns cocktail may not have originally been made to commemorate Robert Burns (1759-1796): poet, balladeer and Scotland's favourite son, but today the cocktail is served on the 25th January when Scots honour the great man's presumed birthday with the ritualistic serving of haggis and a few drams.
Like many classic cocktails there are numerous recipes for the Bobby Burns, all use a base of Scotch whisky with generous sweet vermouth but each calls for a different modifying liqueur and or bitters. Follows what I think are the three best Bobby Burns recipes.
Bobby Burns #1 (Craddock's Version)
Glass: Martini
Garnish: Lemon zest twist & side of shortbread
Method: STIR all ingredients with ice and strain into chilled glass.
2 shot Dewar's 12 Year Old Scotch whisky
1 shot Martini Rosso sweet vermouth
¼ shot Bénédictine D.O.M.
Comment: Rich and slightly sweet, laced with spice liqueur and a good dram.
Origin: Recipe adapted from Harry Craddock's The Savoy Cocktail Book, 1930, which calls for equal parts vermouth and Scotch with three dashes of Bénédictine. Craddock writes of this drink: "One of the very best Whisky Cocktails. A very fast mover on Saint Andrew's Day."
Bobby Burns #2 (Crockett's Version)
Glass: Old-fashioned
Garnish: Maraschino cherry
Method: POUR absinthe into ice-filled glass. TOP with water and leave to stand. Separately STIR Scotch, vermouth and bitters with ice. DISCARD contents of glass (absinthe, water and ice) and fill with fresh ice. STRAIN contents of mixing glass into ice-filled absinthe-coated glass.
2 shot Dewar's 12 Year Old Scotch whisky
1 shot Martini Rosso sweet vermouth
1 dash Orange bitters
½ shot La Fée Parisienne (68%) absinthe
Comment: Scotch and vermouth with added interest courtesy of absinthe and orange bitters.
Origin: Recipe adapted from Albert Stevens Crockett's The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book, 1931, where the drink is listed as "Robert Burns" accompanied by the following notation, "It may have been named after the celebrated Scotsman. Chances are, however, that it was christened in honour of a cigar salesman, who 'bought' in the Old Bar [at the Waldorf-Astoria]."
Cocktail historian Gaz Regan discovered that in the 1923 edition of Valentine's Manual of Old New York, a book edited by Henry Collins Brown, there is a picture with the following description:
"The island plot at corner of Forty-second Street, and Broadway in 1880, now occupied by the Times building, after the demolition of the Pabst restaurant and brownstone houses."
The scene includes billboards advertising Bergen Beach, the Castle Square Opera Company, and the Lyceum Theatre, which was playing The Moth and the Flame at the time but as Gaz points out, "Most interesting, though, is the shop that stands in the foreground of the picture. The words on the awning proclaim, Robert Burns Cigars."
As Gaz explained in his Drinks Bulletin, "Albert Stevens Crockett might well have been correct when he said that the drink could have been named for a cigar salesman, but 'Robert Burns' was the name of a brand of cigar, and although it's very possible that the guy who owned this shop went by the same name, it's more likely that The Robert Burns cocktail that was created at the old Waldorf was named for the shop, as a nod to the owner. The old Waldorf Astoria [which stood on the site of today's Empire State Building] didn't open until 1893... but it's not a big stretch to think that the cigar vendor was still in business when the hotel opened, and the Robert Burns brand of cigars was still on the market in the 1960s, or maybe later." Thanks Gaz.
Bobby Burns #3 (Embury's version)
Glass: Coupette
Garnish: Lemon zest twist
Method: STIR all ingredients with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass
2 shot Dewar's 12 Year Old Scotch whisky
1 shot Martini Rosso sweet vermouth
¼ shot Drambuie
2 dash Peychaud's aromatic bitters
Comment: As Embury says, there would seem to be some sense in using a Scotch based liqueur and although this version of the Bobby Burns is rarely seen, it is worthy of a trial.
Origin: Recipe adapted from David A. Embury's Fine Art of Mixing Drinks 1953, in which he writes of this drink, "Peychaud, somehow seems to blend better than Angostura with the Scotch. Benedictine is sometimes used in place of Drambuie. However, the Drambuie is preferable because it is made with a Scotch whisky base."
Glass: Old-fashioned
Garnish: Blackberries & lemon slice
Method: SHAKE first three ingredients with ice and strain into glass filled with crushed ice. DRIZZLE liqueur over drink to create a 'bleeding' effect in the glass. Serve with short straws.
2 shot Bombay Original London dry gin
1 shot Freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ shot Monin Pure Cane sugar syrup (65°brix, 2:1 sugar/water)
½ shot Crème de Mûre liqueur
Comment: One of the best and most popular drinks created in the 1980s.
Origin: By Dick Bradsell at Fred's Club, Soho, London, England.
Next week, w'll be looking at the Brandy Alexander, Breakfast Martini and Brandy Crusta.
1. Amaretto Sour
2. Americano
3. Aperol Spritz
4. Aviation
5. Bellini
6. Benton's Old Fashioned
7. Black Russian
8. Blazer (Blue Blazer)
9. Blood & Sand
10. Bloody Mary
11. Bobby Burns
12. Bramble
13. Brandy Alexander
14. Breakfast Martini
15. Brandy Crusta
16. Brooklyn
17. Bucks Fizz/Mimosa
18. Caipirinia
19. Champagne Cocktail (AKA Business Brace)
20. Champs-Élysées
21. Clover Club
22. Corn & Oil
23. Corpse Reviver
24. Cosmopolitan
25. Cuba Libre
26. Daiquiri Natural
27. Dark & Stormy
28. Dirty Martini
29. Dry Martini
30. Earl Grey Martini
31. El Diablo
32. Espresso Martini
33. Fish House Punch
34. Flip (Lazy Man Flip)
35. French 75
36. French Martini
37. Fuego Manzana
38. Gimlet
39. Gin Gin Mule
40. Godfather
41. Hemingway Special (AKA Papa Doble)
42. Honeysuckle Daiquiri
43. Hot Buttered Rum
44. Hot Toddy
45. Hurricane
46. Irish Coffee
47. Jack Rose
48. Kir Royal
49. Last Word
50. Long Island Iced Tea
51. Mai Tai
52. Manhattan (Sweet)
53. Maple Old Fashioned
54. Margarita On-the-Rocks
55. Martinez
56. Mary Pickford
57. Mint Julep
58. Mojito
59. Moscow Mule
60. Negroni
61. Old Fashioned
62. Paloma
63. Pegu Club
64. Penicillin
65. Pimm's Cup
66. Piña Colada
67. Pisco Punch
68. Pisco Sour
69. Planter's Punch
70. Porn Star Martini
71. Ramos Gin Fizz
72. Raspberry Collins
73. Ricky
74. Rob Roy
75. Rum Punch
76. Russian Spring Punch
77. Rusty Nail
78. Sangaree (Sangria)
79. Sangrita
80. Sazerac
81. Sidecar
82. Silk Stockings
83. Singapore Sling
84. Sour Apple Martini
85. Spritz al Bitter (made with Campari)
86. Ti' Punch
87. Tom Collins
88. Tommy's Margarita
89. Treacle
90. Vesper
91. Vieux Carré
92. Vodka Collins
93. Vodkatini (AKA Kangaroo)
94. Wibble
95. Whiskey Daisy
96. Whiskey Sour
97. Whiskey Smash
98. White Lady
99. White Russian
100. Zombie
