The parentage of Americans’ favorite drinks is frequently shrouded with uncertainty and controversy, but there is more consensus about the Bloody Mary than there is about the mint julep or even the whiskey sour.
Most food and drink historians, although they take a circuitous route, come back to the now-legendary Fernand “Pete” Petiot, who was the bartender at Harry’s New York Bar, which was located at 5 rue Danou in Paris. The watering hole, which is not related to the Harry’s Bar in Venice that has the Bellini as its claim to fame, was opened in 1911 by Harry MacElhone. In a city filled with shining zinc bar tops made from galvanized steel, this was a New York–style bar with a wooden surface that had been dismantled and shipped across the Atlantic.
Around 1920 Russian émigrés began arriving in Paris after fleeing the revolution, and with them came both caviar and—more importantly—vodka. Petiot began playing around with the clear spirit, and declared it tasteless; they obviously brought the good stuff. At just the same time canned tomato juice reached Paris, and he started playing with the two, adding various other flavors and substances until his patrons declared it a hit. Thus, the Bloody Mary was born, and it appealed to some of his regular customers like Ernest Hemingway. It was first called the Bucket of Blood, named for a Chicago nightclub. And Americans fleeing Prohibition loved it and brought back tales of the drink to their alcohol-starved countrymen.
In the 1970s supporters of the antiwar movement were referred to as the doves, while those backing the war in Vietnam were called the hawks. Back in nineteenth-century America we had the wets versus the drys, and the issue was bourbon, not bullets.
Starting in the mid-nineteenth century a coalition was formed of rural Protestants and social Progressives regardless of their affiliation as Democrats or Republicans, and in the early twentieth century these groups were joined by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union to become the Anti-Saloon League. The emphasis was to ban alcohol state by state, and after most of the nation had gone dry, the Eighteenth Amendment, known as the Volstead Act, set down the rules for enforcing the ban on alcoholic beverages. The act was ratified in 1920, and for thirteen years was the law of the land—sort of. In truth, what the nation missed out on was not liquor but the tax revenues it generated when sold legally. In many ways it was seen as a conflict between rural Protestants and urban Catholics.
The act itself had the appearance of Swiss cheese. Wine used in a religious context was fine, and physicians could prescribe liquor for their patients.
The lack of legal sale gave rise to a whole new industry of illegal operators—the bootleggers. Urban crime rates soared as organized crime codified the bootleg liquor market, and the Volstead Act proved impossible to enforce. The speakeasy replaced the saloon. The Volstead Act went into effect on January 17, 1920, and within an hour, there were police reports of its having been broken.
In 1933 Congress proposed the Twenty-First Amendment to repeal Prohibition.
Although the national law was no longer in force, states and counties retained the right to set limits on or ban the sale of alcoholic beverages.
With all of the attention paid to her father, King Henry VIII, and her younger sister, who reigned as Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Mary I has become almost a footnote in the history books. But she is the one whose nickname for the ages has been Bloody Mary.
Born in 1516, Mary was the only surviving child of Henry and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. After her parents’ marriage was annulled—because Henry had yet to start the Church of England that would provide him with future divorces—Mary was declared illegitimate.
Five wives later when Henry VIII died in 1547, the crown was passed to his only son. King Edward VI was just ten years old at the time, and died a mere six years later but not before he had set a plan in place to exclude his two half-sisters from the line of succession. His choice instead was Lady Jane Grey, a distant relative who was the granddaughter of Henry’s younger sister, who ruled for nine days before she was overthrown by Mary in 1553.
Mary remained a devout Roman Catholic and gained her sanguine nickname for the executions she ordered of Protestant clergy while trying to link England once again to the papacy. Her targets included Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, among countless others. Mary was thirty-seven at the time of her accession, and she was desperate to produce a Catholic heir so the throne would not go to her Protestant sister, Elizabeth, upon her death.
She married King Philip II of Spain and remained childless. There were reports of two “false pregnancies” during which she gained weight but no child was born, and historians now believe these were ectopic pregnancies. Mary died five years into her reign in 1558.
“Bloody Mary” was also memorialized in the children’s nursery rhyme: “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.” History disagrees on the actual significance of the bells, shells, and maids: The bells could represent church bells; the shells may be a nod to Saint James, whose symbol is the scallop shell; and the maids could be Catholic nuns. But other interpretations tie the silver bells to Mary’s elaborate dresses, the shells to her fondness for exotic foods, and the maids to her ladies-in-waiting.
After the implementation of the Twenty-First Amendment the bar scene in the United States could once again thrive, and in 1933 Petiot moved to New York City after being wooed by industrialist Vincent Astor to head the King Cole Bar at the landmark Hotel St. Regis, known for its dominating mural by American illustrator Maxfield Parrish. But there his drink was called the Red Snapper, and a “secret ingredient” was a dash of vodka in which a handful of black peppercorns had marinated for more than a month. The media made the drink a darling, and it gained the status of a classic.
In most of the country the drink had become the Bloody Mary, with a reference to Queen Mary I of England and Ireland, who was known for her reign of terror against the countries’ Protestants. Smirnoff started distilling vodka in 1934, when the ink on the Twenty-First Amendment was barely dry, when Russian immigrant Rudolph Kunnetchansky founded the company. There was an instant marriage between his product and the Bloody Mary, although vaudevillian George “Georgie” Jessel claims that the Mary in question was not a queen but his friend Mary Geraghty. Other stories say it was named after film diva Mary Pickford.
In an interview with the New Yorker in 1964, Petiot said that Jessel’s claim was a simple brew of half vodka and half tomato juice, and it was he who added the salt, pepper, lemon, and Worcestershire sauce. No one has come forward to claim either the horseradish or the celery salt.
In 1942 Life magazine printed a recipe similar to a Bloody Mary but it was called the Red Hammer. The earliest recipe we can find for a Bloody Mary under its real name was printed in 1946, and many bars around the country claim to have added the celery stick as an edible swizzle stick.
Following World War II, when suburban living became the new Holy Grail, the Bloody Mary was already firmly ensconced as the leading drink to serve for brunch, a meal period that was new to the country. Although thought of by some as a hangover cure, the drink is most often associated with the convivial spirit of a brunch party.
The biggest boost to the popularity of Bloody Marys could be traced to the introduction of a great convenience food—bottled Bloody Mary mixers. It was Herb and June Taylor who became Mr. and Mrs. T and introduced their product through food-service channels in 1960. The brand’s real break came a few years later when it was adopted in the small cans familiar to all airline passengers. It was the customers who then demanded that grocery stores carry it.
And that brings us to today. Bloody Marys are the go-to drink for the early part of the day, but their variations—especially the exciting hand-crafted drinks like the recipes in this book—are becoming increasingly popular at all times of day.
Bloody Mary is also a lesser character rooted in nineteenth-century American folklore that ranges from benign to truly malevolent depending on which version of the tale is being told. Whether she’s a ghost, phantom, or spirit, she is credited with the ability to reveal the future if conjured.
The ritual, primarily performed by young girls in order to see a vision of their future husband, is about as eerie and creepy as a haunted house. In one version the girls walk backward up the stairs in a darkened house with a mirror in one hand and a candle in the other. An alternative scenario is that a group of young women ritualistically call out her name in a dimly lit room.
If all goes well, they’re supposed to catch a glimpse of their future husband. But it’s not that easy. Sometimes they would see a skull or the face of the Grim Reaper; this is a sign that they’re going to die before marriage.
But that’s not the only thing to fear. Instead of being a harmless apparition, Bloody Mary can be evil; she is said to scream, or have the power to strangle or drink the blood of those who seek her. Not nearly as nice as a cocktail.