My Bloody Mary recipe.

Years ago my mother did a cookbook for the family reunion.  I put in three recipes and this is one of them.

Dear Mom,
Here's the bloody Mary recipe.

When I was a bartender I realized that you had to be good, real good with certain drinks.  One of them is the bloody Mary.  Every three or four days I would experiment, make up different variations and force them on different managers to get their opinion.  Eventually my boss told me to stop making the mix and start using the pre-made mix.  I was vindicated in the fact that bloody Mary sales went down shortly thereafter.  Story time over, let's mix.

Start off with a gallon of tomato juice, you could use clamato juice but that just sounds terrible to me.  Then you add stuff such as:

2 oz.  crushed black pepper
1 oz.  ground white pepper
2 oz.  Worchestshire sauce
1.5 oz. Dijon mustard (not the yellow stuff)
1.5 oz.  Tabasco sauce
1 oz.  ground cayenne pepper
1.5 oz.  celery salt
3.5 oz.  steak sauce
1.5 oz.  horseradish
juice of 4 small lemons
juice of 4 small limes
1 shot (4-5 oz.) of cold espresso
1 onion big enough to hold in your hand - chop it up real fine in a food processor - about as fine as sea salt or finer

Mix it all together and let marry in the fridge overnight and you're ready to go.  Well almost, this is a bloody Mary so you need to add alcohol.  Even without the alcohol it's an eye opener, with the alcohol it's an adult eye opener.

Traditionally you want to use vodka but I've had some good responses with tequila.  You can use the spirits plain or make an infusion, which is actually easier than making the mix.  To really turn up the heat on your drink fill a two liter container with a liter of alcohol and a liter of something.  Most people use jalapeno, I prefer ceranno but whatever you want.  If you don't like someone use habenero.  Let this mix sit in the fridge (or the counter, with the alcohol present you don't have to worry about it going bad) for a few days.  Three for a good strong flavor, more or less depending on your taste.  Strain the liquor into another container (or the original) and it's ready.  Do this with vodka and strawberries and mix with 7-Up and you have an extremely refreshing summer drink.