I am a
whiskey drinker. Being a southern boy
with Kentucky roots I was weaned to bourbon.
During my years in the military I drank Old Crow – usually buying it by
the half gallon. When I retired from
the military and became gainfully employed I matriculated to Scotch and Irish
Whiskey. I haven’t had a mixed drink in fifty
years; with the exception of Bloody Mary.
I was
converted to the sect of Bloody Mary in Vietnam.
On Tan Son Nhut Air Base in
Saigon on Sunday morning between ten and noon the NCO Club had a special:
Bloody Mary for a nickel. Whenever I
was in Saigon I would gather at the club with other lay people who chose to
avoid Sunday church services, tithe a dollar, and partake of the bloody Eucharist,
often with loud praise and adoration.
A couple of
weeks ago on a Sunday morning my wife and I traveled up to a great little
restaurant in a rural section of north-western Maine just a few miles from the
Canadian border. I decided to have the
eggs benedict with smoked salmon, and what better to have for a beverage than a
Bloody Mary. It was advertised as their
‘Signature Bloody Mary’ and that alone should have given me pause. Instead of tomato juice they used canned whole
tomatoes in a blender, adding vodka, some other secret ingredients and far too
much Tabasco – this was topped off with an al’dente asparagus chute. When they brought the watery abortion to the
table there were chunks of tomato and enough tomato seeds in suspension to clog
a straw, and the drink was so hot it burned the lips.
I have witnessed the desecration of Bloody Mary before, but this was near the top. The worst was at a hotel bar in Fairbanks,
Alaska. Their Bloody Mary was served
with a jalapeno pepper at the bottom of the glass and two pickled string beans protruding
– the only adjective I can link to describe their drink is: Nasty.
Making a
Bloody Mary is simple: Ice in the bottom of the glass, salt on the ice, two
shots of vodka and tomato juice. That is
a Bloody Mary at its most basic, and I can worship on that. If you want more tang to complete the
transubstantiation add the Trinity: a squeeze of lemon, a dollop of Worcestershire
sauce and a spritz of hot sauce (I prefer Louisiana Hot Sauce to Tabasco, as it
adds the flavor without the heat.) If
you feel the need for a vegetable to stir, a stalk of celery works. Anything beyond this is an abomination.
In Leviticus,
Buzzard sharia law, chapter 13 verse 2 it states that anyone mixing a Bloody
Mary with any liquor other than vodka should be driven through the streets in
sackcloth and crucified on a mountain of Smirnoff bottles; and verse 3 states
that anyone making a Bloody Mary with commercial Bloody Mary mix should be
stripped naked, given a Tabasco enema and made to dance on a bed of shattered
ice cubes – the option would be stoning.
From the
Church of the Blood of Mary I wish you a happy Sunday.
the Ol’Buzzard
