The bloody mary is a brunch cocktail icon. In fact, when Look surveyed readers on their all-time favorite brunch drink, this savory treat came in just behind the ubiquitous mimosa. Thought to have originated in Paris before reaching New York City, this tipple has probably been enjoyed during sun-up hours since the 1920s. The quintessential bloody mary recipe calls for vodka, tomato juice, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, salt, pepper, and celery salt. However, few cocktails inspire as many twists as the bloody mary. The fact that it has this savory, salty, spicy, umami, bright, and tomato-forward profile really opens up the possibilities for fun tweaks. That’s why we see so many delectable garnish options for the bloody mary, from classic celery to tropical pineapple — some restaurants even offer wild renditions with crab claws and sliders.
Without getting quite so wacky, we’ve found our new favorite bloody mary upgrade. It’s simple and approachable but incredibly tasty, and it harmonizes right along with the cocktail’s usual flavors while also bringing in some new, intriguing notes. We’re talking about beet juice. First things first, since you see your bloody mary before you taste it: beet juice’s deep purple-pink hue brings serious vibrancy to the beverage’s red color. In terms of aroma and flavor, beet juice is sweet and earthy. The sweetness is a welcome balance, rounding out the bloody mary’s heat and savory quality, and that fresh earthiness adds complexity to the spices and vegetable flavors.
How to add beet juice to your bloody mary
Beet juice has such an interesting flavor profile that it instantly jazzes up any cocktail. It has an almost dirt-like quality (in a good way, of course), like a lush forest with notes of sweetness, bitterness and tartness. You can use beet juice to reinvent your next negroni, or just think about specific types of booze that beet juice’s funky character would partner well with, like herbaceous pisco. When it comes to the guaranteed crowd-pleaser of a beet-centric bloody mary, you can blend roasted beets right in. Adding beet juice, however, achieves all of those delightful flavors in a fraction of the time and effort.
The only thing you really need to know to make a bloody mary with beet juice is how much juice to add. Think about proportions: a bloody mary recipe meant to serve two people calls for six shots of vodka and ¼ cup beet juice. Six shots works out to be 9 ounces, and a ¼ cup is 2 ounces — that’s a little less than a 3:1 ratio of vodka to beet juice. You could also compare it to the tomato juice quantity: Bloody marys for two with six shots of vodka require 2 cups of tomato juice, making an 8:1 ratio of tomato juice to beet juice. This is the perfect amount to showcase beet juice’s delicious flavor without letting it overwhelm any of the bloody mary’s other stars.
