Bloody Mary Morning

Tomato juice and vodka is not a Bloody Mary. Certainly not. To enjoy this drink you will need a few more ingredients, and perhaps a little experience getting the proportions right. But I can promise you that gaining this experience will be pleasurable, as long as you don't do it every single morning.

Of course vodka and tomato juice are the two main ingredients of a Bloody Mary and your only liquid ingredients, unless you want to make a Caesar, which is how they drink Bloody Marys in the Great White North, Canada. Caesars use clamato juice, a mix of tomato and clam juice – why? I don't know. Do you?

So fill a nice sized glass with ice and vodka and tomato juice in the proportion you prefer. With better vodka, you can make it stronger. I like Finlandia for well prices, but good vodka.

Then you add spices – celery salt and pepper. Why celery salt? I don't know, it's another Bloody Mary mystery, but it's better than regular salt. Shake a little of each in and stir, enough to add flavor but not dominate.

Then get some Tabasco sauce in there. You can use any hot sauce really, and as with everything else in the Bloody Mary put it in little by little to taste.

Finally, you need a stick-like garnish – usually a big dill pickle or a celery stick. I've even seen meatsticks. Wait until the end of the drink to eat it because it will absorb alcohol and taste really good.

Then put on Willie Nelson's "Bloody Mary Morning," and go out on your front porch with an ice cold beer as a chaser. I challenge any hangover to survive that.