Carson City bartenders to compete Saturday for best Bloody Mary
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Fri, 04/26/2013 - 8:35am
Attention bartenders and Bloody Mary aficionados: There's a contest Saturday to determine which Carson City bar keep can make the tastiest, tangiest tomato juice-vodka concoction.
Remedy's Bar at 306 East William Street will hold the contest, co-sponsored by Smirnoff, which is providing the vodka. The first place winner will receive a minimum of $100 in cash. Second place winner will also receive a cash prize based on the number of entrants.
The contest is open to bartenders who will pay a $10 entry fee and those 21 and over are invited to come in a sample the concoctions as they are made.
Megan Torres, co-owner of Remedy's, says she got the idea because all bartenders insist they make the best Bloody Mary. Torres believes she makes a pretty good one, too, and thought, why not put as many local bartenders to the test. The contest will be judged by a panel to ensure fairness. Panelists will not know which drink came from which bartender.
"Bloody Marys are drinks where bartenders puts their own touches to them and add secret ingredients," she said. "A good Bloody Mary goes way beyond tomato juice and vodka. A great Bloody Mary is a meal."
Remedy's will provide the basic "lunch" fixings — tomato juice, olive juice, celery, celery salt, Worcestershire, and Smirnoff vodka. It's up to the bartenders to bring their secret ingredients.
Bartenders should begin to arrive for the set up period which runs from 1 to 3 p.m. with mixing from 3 to 4 p.m. and judging from 4 to 5 p.m. The final votes will be tallied and announced at 6 p.m.
Here's more about the Bloody Mary from the Wikipedia entry:
The Bloody Mary's origin is unclear. Fernand Petiot claimed to have invented the drink in 1921 while working at the New York Bar in Paris, which later became Harry's New York Bar, a frequent Paris hangout for Ernest Hemingway and other American expatriates.
Two other claims have some plausibility. The first is that it was invented in the 1930s at New York’s 21 Club by a bartender named Henry Zbikiewicz, who was charged with mixing Bloody Marys. A second claim attributes its invention to the comedian George Jessel, who frequented the 21 Club.
In 1939, Lucius Beebe printed in his gossip column This New York one of the earliest U.S. references to this drink, along with the original recipe: "George Jessel’s newest pick-me-up which is receiving attention from the town’s paragraphers is called a Bloody Mary: half tomato juice, half vodka."
Fernand Petiot seemed to corroborate Jessel's claim when the bartender spoke to The New Yorker magazine in July 1964, saying:
"I initiated the Bloody Mary of today," he told us. "Jessel said he created it, but it was really nothing but vodka and tomato juice when I took it over. I cover the bottom of the shaker with four large dashes of salt, two dashes of black pepper, two dashes of cayenne pepper, and a layer of Worcestershire sauce; I then add a dash of lemon juice and some cracked ice, put in two ounces of vodka and two ounces of thick tomato juice, shake, strain, and pour. We serve a hundred to a hundred and fifty Bloody Marys a day here in the King Cole Room and in the other restaurants and the banquet rooms."
The Bloody Mary is sometimes mistakenly believed to alleviate hangovers when it is served in the morning. In the United States, the Bloody Mary is a popular drink choice at restaurants that serve brunch.
