This is from Paul Harrinton's book Cocktails: The Drink Bible for the 21st Century
Red Snapper (the real Bloody Mary)
We'll keep this one short, knowing that after New Year's you're probably in no mood for a drink. But on the off chance you're in a weakened state, we really must mention that the Bloody Mary was first made with gin, not vodka, and was christened the Red Snapper. We wouldn't bet our lives on this factoid, but after the holidays we'd certainly contemplate betting our siblings'.
In fact, the only verity we really have on the Red Snapper is that this mixed drink does wonders for self-inflicted illnesses, particularly those brought on by the occasional bad Martini olive or maraschino cherry. We can also make a good case that the Bloody Mary has no direct ties to dear Mary Tudor, Mary I of England and Ireland - most remembered for her nickname "Bloody Mary" and the mess she made with the Protestants.
Mixed with 2 ounces gin, 4 ounces tomato juice, the juice of half a lemon, a few shakes of salt and pepper, followed by a splash of Worcestershire sauce (pronounced "what's-this-here-sauce"), and then Tabasco, the Red Snapper always manages to keep our stomachs weighed down and our spirits high. We also count sipping any drink with a celery stalk in it fair penance for past instances of poor judgment.
After one or two Snappers, we're ready to defend the heritage of this fine drink. According to the story we like, Ferdinand "Pete" Petiot, a bartender at Harry's New York Bar in Paris, concocted a blend of tomato juice, vodka, and seasonings that American entertainer Roy Barton dubbed the "Bucket of Blood" sometime in the early '20s. However, there is substantiated speculation that the drink was first made with gin, a far more popular spirit at that time. Nonetheless, the Parisians were unimpressed, and Mr. Petiot emigrated to the States, where he manned the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis Hotel in the mid-'30s. Mr. Petiot pushed his tomato-based drink as a hangover cure, but with the far more comforting name of Red Snapper and, we suspect, the far more inspiring spirit of gin. Again, it's worth noting that during the Old School of American Bartending, right on through to the early '40s, white whiskey was unheard of in the States - until Smirnoff had its way.
Even Trader Vic, who prided himself on first bringing (or at least mimicking) the exotic Stateside, hadn't come across the Bloody Mary until that time: "I first heard of this drink on the steamer Matsonia on my way to Honolulu before the war. It was being consumed by a big, tall, redheaded lass who soon had everyone converted. I'm not saying what she had them converted to." (Proof again, we worry, of the Bloody Mary's insipidity.)
But origins aside, we're always sure to second Hemingway when summing up the merits of the Bloody Mary. In a 1947 letter, our favorite bad boy of the cocktail world wrote that after he introduced the mixed drink to Hong Kong in 1941, the drink "did more than any other single factor except the Japanese Army to precipitate the Fall of that Crown Colony." We keep that last bit of information in mind for those expected occasions when some presumptuous bartender second-guesses our order and swaps vodka for gin. If it tastes like tomato juice with spices but no spunk, we send it back - knowing that downing the spirit you can't really taste before the day's end would be a far worse fate than a spat with the mixer. |
