Starvacious

I didn’t start drinking bloody marys until very shortly before my 30th birthday, when, in the final season of my rugby career, I discovered that a bloody mary is a great post-game treat. Lots of salt, which tastes really good after 80 minutes of sweating, plus a respectable amounts of vitamins A and C (at least if you’re drinking something that has ever met a real tomato), which defeats the nutritional value of yellow beer in any head to head competition.

Shortly thereafter, and I am not sure how, I became a designated bloody mary mix maker. So, anytime there is a potluck brunch or other excuse to have bloody marys, I am on call. So, I’ll be bringing bloody marys to Labor Day brunch this weekend.

Since I was kind of grossed out by bloody mary mix in a bottle, I found a bunch (okay, like, five) of bloody mary recipes on the internet, combined them in my brain, and came up with this.

For tomato juice, I usually use the RW Knudsen stuff that they sell at my co-op. If I am making mix for a big bunch of people, I like to combine straight up tomato juice with Very Veggie juice, which brings carrot, celery, and other vegetal flavors to the  party.

Bloody Mary Mix

For each 32 oz bottle of tomato juice, add:
2 oz lemon juice (1/4 cup)
2 ts grated horseradish
8-12 dashes (approx 1 ts?) Worcestershire sauce
9 dashes Tabasco
~1 ts salt
~1 ts pepper
~ 1 ts celery salt

And mix.

This creates a nice, fairly thicky textured mix that has only a marginal heat level (calibrated to not offend Minnesotan palates, the kind of palates that might find ketchup spicy). I usually add a bit more heat to my own, with more horseradish, tabasco, or even wasabi.

Next time around, I might throw some lemon or lime zest in there, just to see how that kicks up the flavor.