The Story of the Bloody Mary

Since the days of the ancient Romans, humankind has hunted for a foolproof cure for the hangover — the headache and general misery of the day after a night when our elbow got a little too much exercise. Whatever the Americans say about their magic cure-all pills, the truth is that there are only two ways to avoid this side effect: don’t drink, or never stop drinking.

The Bloody Mary — invented nearly a hundred years ago by a French bartender named Ferdinand Petiot, in honor of Mary Tudor, Queen of England, known as “Bloody Mary” — essentially follows the second option. That probably wasn’t Monsieur Petiot’s intention, but history, as we know, sometimes plays dirty tricks.

What happens, in particular, is that the English — whose glorious traditions include a Saturday night devoted to drinking and a Sunday devoted to the family lunch — soon discovered this miraculous mixture and made it their own, swapping the original spirit (vodka) for a more patriotic London Dry gin. They also changed the name, hardly flattering for their ancient queen, and called it the “Red Snapper,” after the red-colored saltwater fish. That, at least, is the version I like best — even if it lives only in my imagination: in reality, Monsieur Petiot, a bartender at the St. Regis in New York, was pushed by his employers to swap the spirit because vodka was hard to come by in the USA around 1920, and to change the name because it was too aggressive for their refined clientele.

In any case, back to that image of a lovely English country house where the family gathers on Sunday for the roast: this drink enjoys many admirers because, thanks to its many spiced ingredients, the taste of the alcohol is so cleverly masked that you barely notice you’re drinking it. In this way — at least temporarily — you can outrun the hangover for a few hours and keep up appearances between a slice of roast beef and a game of croquet (yes, the stereotypes come thick and fast here).

Don’t be fooled, though: when you least expect it, that cunning contraption your body devised to let you know you’ve overdone it will come knocking again. And the bill it hands you will be steep indeed.

The original recipe:
5cl vodka, 14cl tomato juice, 2cl lemon juice, salt, pepper, Tabasco, and Worcestershire sauce to taste.
Combine all the ingredients in a tall glass, stir, add ice, and sip slowly while reflecting on the night before.

Face-Slapper (my version):
Recipe: 5cl gin, 3cl lemon juice, 3cl Pachino-tomato syrup, 2cl basil-infused apple cider vinegar, 6cl tomato juice, a small spoon of Marmite, salt, one crushed chili.

Julian Biondi
Florentine bartender with a passion for writing and for stories. He contributes as a journalist for FUL and Bargiornale, and works as a freelance F&B consultant. Recently the winner of the first Florence Cocktail Week.