Drinks » Bloodymary

Shake well with cracked ice:

• 2 oz vodka
• 4 oz tomato juice
• 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• generous splash Worcestershire sauce
• 3 to 4 dashes Tabasco
• 1 teaspoon fresh grated horseradish, with liquid squeezed out

Strain into Collins glass with 2 or 3 ice cubes in it; add a pinch of salt and a grind or two of fresh pepper to taste. Garnish, if necessary, with a stalk of celery.

This "savage combination of tomato juice and vodka"—as master bartender Jack Townsend deemed it half a century ago—has managed, in the fullness of time, to escape the "Freak Drink" category where he located it. Like the proverbial pushcart-vendor's kid, the Bloody Mary went from the Lower East Side to Scarsdale in one generation, shedding along the way its queer foreign name (according to some, it was originally known as the "Timoshenko") for one of pure Anglo lineage. (Sure, some say it started as the "Red Snapper" at Harry's Bar in Paris in the '20s, that Hemingway drank it—what didn't he drink?—and so forth. But the "Red Snapper" was made with gin—gak!—and what we're talking about here is the other white spirit). In fact, this upstart is now second only to the Martini in the world of WASP drinking.

Whatever its current status, a glance at the Bloody Mary's component parts—neutral spirits, restorative juices, salts, capsaicins, and other volatile oils—indicates that its origins lie in the shadowy world of the hangover cure, and there, as far as Esquire—snobbish to the core in these matters—is concerned, it may remain, a useful citizen of the Republic of Tipple, but never to be listed on the more rarefied roster of nocturnal libations.