The Greatest Bloody Mary

Pay attention. The Bloody Mary. The BLOODY. MARY. The greatest breakfast cocktail in the history of breakfast cocktails, and probably the only one that counts — mimosas are for amateurs, mimosas are sparkling juice, mimosas are what people drink when they are afraid of FLAVOR. The Bloody Mary is for serious people. Serious. People.

Most Bloody Marys are TERRIBLE. Most of them. You walk into a brunch place, they hand you something that tastes like cold tomato sauce with a limp celery stick sticking out of it, and they charge you fourteen dollars. FOURTEEN. DOLLARS. For warm V8 with vodka. An outrage. Scientists — and I've talked to scientists, very smart people, the smartest — have studied what happens to tomato juice that sits in a fridge in a giant plastic jug for nine days, and the answer is NOTHING GOOD. A food chemist explained the oxidation curve to me. I understood about 30% of it. The 30% I understood was DAMNING.

The Bigly Bloody Mary is BUILT. Not poured. BUILT. Real tomato juice — REAL, look at the label, the watered-down stuff is a betrayal — vodka, horseradish, Worcestershire, hot sauce, lemon, celery salt, black pepper. You stir it. You taste it. You adjust it. You make it for YOU. And then you load it up with garnishes that mean something. Celery. Pickle spear. Olive. Lemon wedge. Some people put a slider on top. Some people put bacon. Some people go INSANE. I respect it. I respect the insanity. The Bloody Mary is the ONLY cocktail where you're allowed to put a sandwich on top of it. It's just a fact.

That is the Bloody Mary. A meal in a glass. A redemption arc in a glass. Drink one of these on a Sunday morning and the world makes sense again, the birds sing louder, the coffee tastes better, your problems shrink. It's medicinal. It's documented. People have written ABOUT IT. I haven't read those, I don't need to, I LIVE IT — and you will too, the first time you make this. Garnish HEAVY. Spice HEAVY. Apologize to NOBODY. The greatest Bloody Mary on Earth. Beautiful.