An Iconic Sunday Drink Gets the Mixology Treatment

The Bloody Mary bar is quite probably the highlight of Sunday brunch, but boy are there a lot of options. Hot sauces, celery stalks, olives on skewers, peppers, pickles – that’s a lot of decision-making after a rousing Saturday night. Best to leave it to the pros to throw together the perfect Bloody Mary. Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse mixologist P.J. Doyle has been on a quest to make the perfect Bloody Mary since last summer, when Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse COO and franchisee Kevin Armantrout posed the challenge. Doyle’s drink starts with a house-made vodka infusion enlivened from the likes of a rainbow of produce: pickled okra, roasted red peppers, tricolored peppers, carrots, baby corn, garlic, asparagus, cucumbers and onions. To make his spicy spirit, Doyle reached for pricy Chopin vodka. Why go for top-shelf for an infusion? “It is made from potatoes. It loves its brother and sister vegetables,” Doyle explained. His Bloody Mary mix is a combination of tomato juice, zesty Demitri’s (a concentrated Bloody Mary seasoning), fresh lime juice, orange juice and celery bitters. Doyle finishes the drink with a shot of Budweiser and a couple added hits of celery bitters to a salt-and-pepper-rimmed glass. To garnish, seasonal pickled veggies or “whatever hits my mood,” said Doyle. The Bacon Bloody Mary at Ernesto’s Wine Bar in Benton Park is so popular that bartenders go through 2 liters of the house-infused bacon vodka on a typical Sunday. The drink also gets high marks for its garnish: a slice of bacon wrapped around a skewered pair of green olives stuffed with Fox River Dairy’s blue cheese. Salty. Fatty. Briny. The perfect fix for a hangover. SubZero’s Dustin Parres caught our attention with his deconstructed Bloody Mary that gives a nod to vodka’s Russian roots. Part one of the Russian Bloody Mary is a martini glass filled with seasonal house-pickled items like red onions, sliced jalapeños, carrots, beets and cauliflower swimming in 3 ounces of shaken-and-strained Imperia Russian Vodka. “Besides Stoli Elit, I can’t think of a better Russian vodka,” said Parres. “It doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves.” The second component of the drink is a separate rocks glass filled with chilled Zing Zang, the proverbial Bloody Mary mix. Hold the ice: The traditional Russian method of consuming the drink, according to Parres, is to “sip the vodka, chase it with the tomato base and enjoy the pickles at your leisure. But I’ve seen people do it every way possible,” he added, noting that guests have even requested chopsticks to fish out the pickled veggies.