Everyone I know loves a good Bloody Mary. Maybe it was my Midwest upbringing. Everywhere we ever went you could get a damn good Bloody. Hell, in Kenosha, Wisconsin when you ordered one, you received a beer back (chaser)! Ah those were the days. Though after my move to the good ole' Southwest, finding a decent Bloody was next to impossible.
"CELERY SALT? Um... No... whats that?"
"We rimmed the glass with sea salt for you!"
"Would you like Absolute Citron in that?"
SOMEONE please get me the hell out of dodge! How does a BARTENDER not know how to make a SIMPLE BLOODY MARY?! This was something that drove me CRAZY for years when I first set up camp here in Arizona. So rather then travel with a Bloody Mary kit everywhere I go, I succumbed to my at home bar. First things first. A decent Vodka. And there are so many different varieties of vodka out there. The pepper ones I thought - would be the best. But I tried them and just was not happy. They weren't peppery enough for me. I needed bite. Sting. Heat. Not just from the vodka either. So I chose a brand I knew well enough and made my own infused vodka. The choice of vodka is not really important here. You simply want a plain vodka - nothing flavored because that is going to be YOUR JOB. Truth be told - I chose Seagram's this time because it was on sale. It's going to be heavily flavored and used in a Bloody Mary. You do not need that $50.00 bottle. TRUST. ME.
Next, gather your ingredients:
In this particular batch I used:1 white onion - sliced in wedges
8-12 jalapeno peppers - halved and seeded
3-6 Anahiem peppers - halved and seeded
10-12 Thai chili peppers - stems removed
5 Tablespoons of peppercorn melange
Open Vodka and remove the pour spout. Take all your ingredients and push thru the top of the bottle. (You may need to pour off a little bit of vodka. Just whip up some vodka sauce or a martini). Put the pour spout back on. Close tightly and give it a slight shake and store in dark place for a minimum of two weeks.
It may be a little hard to tell, but the vodka from today - marked 3 weeks later - it has this amazing amber color, and smells of pepper and spice. So much better then anything you buy in the store. Next step is to pour the vodka into either decorative bottles or into another empty vodka bottle - (which I always save for just this purpose), or just into a large measuring cup until you can clean out the bottle. The sliced peppers and onions will easily shake out of the bottle. I throw away the veggies, but keep the peppercorns and bake them in the oven at 200ยบ. Once dry they get their own grinder. AMAZING on steak. Oh heck - amazing on ANYTHING.
This bottle is going to a lucky recipient for a holiday gift. You can get about 2-3 gift bottles of vodka from one 1.75 liter bottle. Combine one with some gourmet garlic stuffed olives, maybe a little bottle of Worcestershire, Tabasco, horseradish (however, most people have this in their fridge already) and CELERY SALT and you have a perfect little Bloody Mary gift set. Just add tomato juice. Plus - that one batch of vodka - cost me about 10 dollars. The decorative bottles? 1$ each. I made two batches of vodka and got 5 decorative bottles out of it - with enough to spare for me; An impressive gift - that's cost effective yet really REALLY cool.Ok. I've earned it. Off to get me a Bloody.
