The Bloody Mary: “If it lacks authority, add more vodka”

There is a particular moment at the end of a winter shoot day that no other sport can manufacture. The guns are cleaned, sleeved and locked away. The bag has been laid out and admired with the false modesty of people who are secretly delighted. The last of the light has drained off the hill. You come into the house smelling of wet waxed cotton and cordite, your fingers wrinkled like prunes left from the rain, and somebody puts a glass in your hand. It is red. It is cold. It is, if your host has any sense, a Bloody Mary.

Consider the alternatives. Champagne is for weddings and people who have won something they didn’t deserve. Whisky is for later, when the stories need oiling. The Bloody Mary is the only drink that is also lunch. It is soup that has been sent to finishing school. It is savoury, sharp, hot and cold at once, and it arrives with a vegetable sticking out of it, which is more than can be said for some shoot lunches.

Picture it. You are slumped in front of a fire that spits like a disapproving aunt. Your wet spaniel, smelling like a bog that has been left out in the rain, has arranged herself across your loafered feet and is sizzling, steam curling off her in the firelight. Your cheeks are burning, your toes are thawing with that delicious ache, and you are hungry in the way only a day outside makes you hungry. Then the first sip: tomato, salt, the slap of chilli, the slow creep of horseradish and the clean, cold kick of vodka. It does not so much quench as restore.

Who invented the Bloody Mary?

Nobody agrees who invented the Bloody Mary, which is fitting for a drink beloved of people telling tall stories. The most frequently repeated version credits Fernand Petiot, a young bartender at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, around 1921. Fernand later moved to the King Cole Bar at New York’s St Regis and added Tabasco. There, so one story goes, the owner Vincent Astor objected to the name and it became the Red Snapper. Then there is George Jessel, who claimed in his 1975 autobiography that he dreamt it up in Palm Beach in 1927. Jack McGarry, writing for Difford’s Guide, sides with George. The rest of us side with whoever is pouring.

Ernest Hemingway, a man who loved a gun and a glass in roughly equal measure, left his own recipe. It called for a whole pitcher, because “any smaller amount is worthless”, and it ended with the finest instruction in mixology: “If it lacks authority, add more vodka.”

The Bloody Mary and the shooting field were never formally introduced, yet they go together hand in glove. Both are about timing, nerve and exactly the right amount of kick. Its beefier cousin, the Bullshot, made with consommé and vodka and born in a Detroit bar in 1952, has a name that deserves a peg in every gunroom.

How shoot hosts can elevate their guests’ Bloody Mary

Start with the base. The tiresome part of a Bloody Mary is the chemistry – the Worcestershire, the Tabasco, the salt and pepper, the endless tasting and fiddling while your guests stand about dripping. This is where Big Tom earns its keep. From James White Drinks, based on a Suffolk fruit farm, it is a spiced tomato juice with the Worcestershire and celery already in it, so all a host need add is vodka, ice and confidence. James White first received a Royal Warrant in 2002 and is now By Appointment to His Majesty The King, so Big Tom has passed muster at rather grander tables than yours.

Then dress it. The celery stick is the minimum, the black tie of garnishes. Legend places its debut at the Pump Room in Chicago. Beyond celery, look to the day’s sport and the larder. A rasher of crisp streaky bacon. A skewer of smoked venison or game salami. A pickled quail’s egg, which guests will photograph and discuss until next season. Freshly grated horseradish beats anything from a jar. Rim the glass with celery salt and cracked black pepper. Add a splash of beef consommé and you have a Bloody Bull, the Bullshot’s more sociable relation.

How London’s grand hotels serve a Bloody Mary

The Connaught Bar in Mayfair shakes its Bloody Mary and strains it into a coupe, then finishes it with a cloud of celery air and a grating of nutmeg. Its spice mix includes horseradish, English mustard, soy sauce, coriander and a slice of naga chilli, which is roughly as hot as a shooting debate on social media. The American Bar at The Savoy has served a version built on 24 spices with a cucumber and caper garnish, while the Blue Bar at The Berkeley has paired its Bloody Mary with olive leather.

At home, a chilled coupe rather than a tumbler and serious ice-cold vodka are tricks any host can steal. Make it by the pitcher, as Ernest insisted. Nobody ever came in from a partridge drive wanting half a drink.