Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Bloody Mary inspired by New Year’s Day, which is also National Bloody Mary Day.
The origin of the Bloody Mary, much like the Martini or Margarita, is hotly contested. Hungover American drinkers in the early 1920s opened cans of stewed tomatoes to drink the juice. Vitamins, you know. There were really two serious claimants as inventors of the Bloody Mary: George Jessel and Fernand Petiot.
George Jessel, an actor and comedian, claimed to have first mixed tomato juice and vodka in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1927.
Fernand Petiot was a French Bartender who worked at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris and then moved to the St. Regis Hotel in New York. Petiot claimed to have invented the Bloody Mary in 1921 while at Harry’s, but that was nothing more than tomato juice and vodka. Harry’s, of course, likes to claim it was invented there.
There’s no good evidence to back up either claim. Jessel was associated with the drink by the late 1930s, while Petiot ran a vodka bar at the St. Regis in 1936. Petiot claimed to have added the spices there. Then, of course, New York’s 21 Club claims it was invented there in the 1930s by bartender Henry Zbikiewicz.
The bottom line is we’ll never know. But what we do know is that the Bloody Mary is for day drinking and has remained popular for decades.
Of course, for those from the midwest, Nebraskans claim a cousin to the Bloody Mary, a drink known as a “Red Beer.” That’s basically a beer, preferably a lighter beer, mixed with V8 or tomato juice, and regularly served at Husker sports events & Husker bars around the world.
For National Bloody Mary Day though, we’re stickin’ with the original, no matter who invented it. So raise your glass of today’s Drink Of The Day, and salute - quietly, please - the Bloody Mary.
Ingredients
Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink:
