Bloody Mary garnish ideas, and the rim that holds it all together
The short version: a chilli salt rim, a dried lime wheel, one stick of celery. Stop there.
The Bloody Mary is the one cocktail people treat as a dare. Somewhere along the way it became normal to balance a slider, three olives and a rasher of bacon on the glass. That is a snack with a drink under it, and it is impossible to actually drink.
A good Bloody Mary garnish does two jobs: it adds something you taste in every sip, and it looks like it belongs.
Start with the rim
The rim is the most useful garnish on this drink, because you go through it with every mouthful. A tomato base is savoury and a bit flat on its own, and a salted, spiced rim is what sharpens it.
Our Chilli Citrus Salt Rim Dust does exactly that: salt for seasoning, citrus for lift, and a low chilli heat that carries the drink instead of setting fire to it. A $15 pouch does around 25 drinks.
To rim it so it stays put: run a lime wedge around the outside edge only, roll the glass sideways through a shallow dish of salt, then stand it up and leave it for a minute before pouring. Wetting the inside of the rim is why salt ends up in the drink instead of on the glass.
Then one citrus, one green thing
A dried lime wheel on the rim covers the citrus. It holds its shape in a heavy, cold drink where a fresh wedge goes limp and slides, and the colour reads well against the red.
Celery is the green thing, and it earns its place: it is a stirrer as well as a garnish, and the flavour genuinely suits the drink. One stalk, trimmed so it is not towering over the glass.
That is the whole finish. Rim, lime, celery. If you want to add one more thing, make it something you would actually eat with the drink, and keep it small.
The recipe
Ingredients (per serve)
- 60ml vodka
- 120ml tomato juice
- 15ml fresh lemon juice
- 2 dashes Worcestershire sauce
- 1 dash Tabasco or hot sauce
- Pinch of salt and black pepper
- F N Lemons Chilli Citrus Salt rim dust
- F N Lemons dried lime slice, and a celery stalk
Method
- Wet the outside rim of your glass with lime and roll it through the Chilli Citrus Salt.
- Combine everything except the garnishes in the glass with ice, and stir.
- Garnish with a dried lime slice and a stalk of celery.
Stir rather than shake. Shaking makes tomato juice frothy and pale, and it never really settles.
Making a jug for brunch
Mix the base in a jug and leave it in the fridge, then rim and garnish each glass as you pour. The rim is the bit that makes six glasses look like six drinks rather than one batch, and it takes about half a minute each.
Everything we make is handcrafted in small batches here in the Waikato, using real fruit and natural ingredients. Browse the rim dusts, with free shipping on orders over $100.