What’s shakin’ cocktail fans?
Welcome to Episode 189 of The Modern Bar Cart Podcast!
Thanks for joining us for this, our FIFTH installment of the Breaking Bloody series, where we place the Bloody Mary cocktail under a microscope in hopes of unlocking some of its mysterious, tomatoey secrets.
This time around, we’re joined by long-time listener and home bartender Adam Bauer (@justhereforthedrinks), who serves as our co-producer and travel correspondent. Why would we need one of those, you might ask. Well, we thought it was high time that we returned to the Bloody Mary’s origins at the St. Regis Hotel in New York to learn about how this brand is taking everyone’s favorite brunch cocktail to new heights at each of its many locations around the world. We visit three different St. Regis Hotels this episode and walk you through the custom formulations that they serve their guests.
This episode also touches on a few key tensions within the Bloody Mary world. For example: the tension between ritual and innovation and the impulse to reach for familiar flavors when you’re traveling away from home.
Of course, we couldn’t have done any of this without support from the fine people at the St. Regis Hotel brand, who were gracious enough to invite Adam and Eric into their bars and show us exactly why they have a reputation as one of the finest hospitality venues in the world.
Adam’s first experience was with the 7452 Mary at the St. Regis Deer Valley in Park City, UT. Both visually arresting and thoughtfully designed, this cocktail is a multisensory, textured experience for your eyes and your palate.
The Bloody Mary at the Deer Valley St. Regis Hotel is probably the most experimental version we’ve examined so far in Breaking Bloody, and we think it bears some further comment. In a world where most Bloody Marys are made using a “mix” as a base – a master-ingredient where the tomato, acid, heat, and spice are very often combined before the drink even touches your glass – it’s compelling to be served a cocktail in which those ingredients are somewhat separated. It’s an invitation to mix and to play. You can learn about each individual component, and also how they act in combination, almost like a child plinking away at a piano learns how to play a chord.
And it also comes with a toy! This pipette filled with tabasco and worcestershire sauce is the same exact kind spirits judges use to add single drops of water to the spirits they’re judging. It would have never occurred to us to use one as a way of sequestering ingredients from one another and providing a stunning visual contrast to the tomato and the wasabi espuma.
The next Bloody Mary that Adam encountered was the Downhill Snapper at the St. Regis in Aspen, CO, which is a little bit more traditional than the offering at the St. Regis in Deer Valley, but something that still has a definite sense of place. Basil and Dill both have a fresh, slightly alpine sensibility, and we love that piece of bacon in there because you know if you’re there for a ski trip you could use a little richness and protein to fuel up for your next run down the slopes.
This cocktail is crafted using Woody Creek Vodka, which enjoys a bit of local celebrity due to the posthumous influence of Hunter S. Thompson. After his death, he willed that his ashes be shot from a cannon, and it’s rumored that some of those ashes drifted down and settled upon the potato fields from which the raw materials for the vodka are sourced.
Eric’s experience with our final Bloody Mary for this episode was certainly the most traditional, and as we’ll find out – there’s a good reason for that. Here’s his conversation with Olivier Azzopardi from the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC, who walks us through their signature offering, the Capitol Mary.
The Capitol Mary is a strong reminder of what is so delicious about a classic Bloody Mary. There might not be a celery-wasabi espuma and there might not be an infused vodka with the rumor of Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes, but what you do get with the Capitol Mary is a wonderful composed bite of seafood, complemented by Old Bay seasoning and horseradish as well as the CHOICE between vodka or gin, and if there’s anything that screams brunch to us – it’s the sheer delight of having an array of choices set out before you.
This episode was made possible with editing and sound design by Samantha Reed, jet-setting bloody mary reporting by Adam Bauer, legendary hospitality by several St. Regis Hotel locations, and a little bit of storytelling magic by yours truly. This has been a Modern Bar Cart Production, copyright 2021.
This episode is also brought to you by Near Country Provisions. If you live in the Mid-Atlantic and want to enjoy ethically raised (and delicious) meat from local farmers delivered to your door every month, then you need Near Country in your life.
Head over to NearCountry.com and enter the code BARCART when you sign up for your subscription to receive 2 free pounds of bacon or ground beef in your first delivery.
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