Sauced

Bloody Sunday: The Winning Recipe

Bastille’s Erik Carlson achieves Bloody Mary victory with a farmers market theme and some purple fingers.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on Apr 06, 2012 at 09:55AM 0 Comments

Erik Carlson’s finger-staining, produce-centric Bloodies. Photo: Barbie Hull Photography

On Sunday, March 25, six esteemed Seattle bartenders got up awfully early (after many of them worked a closing shift the previous night) to face off in our Bloody Mary competition. Six excellent drinks later, the people had spoken: Bastille bar manager Erik Carlson’s Farmers Bloody Mary proved the favorite of both drinkers and our highly official judging panel, made up of myself, nattily attired spirits rep Rocky Yeh, Bloody Mary devotee and Matt’s in the Market bartender Robbie McGrath, and the lovely and spice-loving Kamala Saxton of Marination.

Carlson served up his winning drinks with fingers stained purple from beets. This victorious version isn’t for amateurs: It involves a housemade tomato juice, mirepoix, and a bottle of Oola vodka infused with horseradish and lovage. It also involves knowing the definition of words like “mirepoix” and “lovage.” Hey, if creating awesome drinks was easy, everyone would do it.

A giant thanks to Marley Tomic-Beard of The Sexton, Aleko Lilly of Barrio, Evan Martin of Chino’s, MistralKichen bar manager Matt Bailey, and Poquitos barman Jonny Spielsinger for getting the crowd good and Bloodied on a Sunday morning. Here’s Carlson’s winning recipe for those of you feeling ambitious.

Farmer’s Bloody Mary
(1 serving)

Ingredients:
4 ounces house made tomato juice (recipe follows)
2½ ounces horseradish- and lovage-infused Oola vodka (recipe follows)
¼ ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
¼ ounce fresh-squeezed lemon juice
½ teaspoon 10-year-old aged balsamic vinegar
⅛ teaspoon piment d’espelette
⅛ teaspoon sriracha
⅛ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Pinch of sea salt
Pinch of ground peppercorn

Garnish:
1 teaspoon pickled mirepoix (finely chopped celery root, carrot, shallot, onion) on top of the drink.
2 pickled baby red beets and 2 pickled chanterelle mushrooms on a skewer.

Execution:
Combine all your ingredients in a mixing tin and stir with a bar spoon until thoroughly mixed. Fill a 16 ounce glass with ice cubes and pour the mixture over, gently roll the drink back and forth from the glass to the mixing tin. Garnish with house pickles and a fat straw.

Vodka Preparation:
1 bottle Oola vodka
1 bunch of lovage (leaves only)
¼ pound of peeled and diced fresh horseradish

Place horseradish and vodka in a glass container, cover and place in cool area for 5 hours, stirring every hour. Strain out horseradish pieces and add the lovage leaves. Let the vodka and lovage sit in a cool place for 12 hours, strain out lovage leaves, and bottle.

Tomato Juice:
Cut 6 tomatoes in half and place on baking sheet, season with sea salt and place in the oven at 200 degrees for 3 hours. Remove tomatoes from the oven and let cool in the refrigerator. When cool, peel the skin off of the tomatoes and place in food processor, blend tomatoes until smooth. Pour the tomato puree through a sieve and place in a sealed glass bottle and refrigerate.

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Tags: Bloody Marys, Bastille, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Erik Carlson

Locavore Makeover: The Bloody Mary

A morning cocktail that comes with bragging rights.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 14, 2011 at 10:27AM 3 Comments

Give Linda’s Tavern—this is a picture of the bar’s bloody—a run for its money with homemade marys featuring local vodka and spicy pickled garnishes.

Next time you’re serving up brunch made from eggs laid in your backyard chicken coop and bread baked from organic Washington wheat and preserves preserved from local berries, remember that you can drink local too.

Here are four easy ways—okay three easy ways, and one more way that requires buying up half the grocery store—to localize your bloody marys.

1. Use local vodka
Truth be told, a bloody mary masks a spirit—rather than showcasing it—by design. So you could, theoretically, pour in cheap mass-produced vodka, but where is the fun in that?

Local artisanal vodkas include: Ebb and Flow from Sound Spirits in Interbay and Peabody Jones from Woodinville Whiskey, Bainbridge Organic Distillers makes one too as does Woodinville’s Soft Tail Spirits and Dry Fly in Spokane. All are listed in state liquor stores.

2. Rim the glass with all-natural sea salts
There are three or four sea salts from locally based Secret Stash that could work well in a bloody mary, but the obvious place to start is with its bloody mary sea salt, an additive-free mixture of sea salt, organic sun-dried tomatoes, paprika, cayenne pepper, wasabi powder, and celery salt.

3. Make your own Worcestershire sauce
This is a little hardcore, but once you go homemade Worcestershire, you never go back to the bottle. Okay, you might go back to the bottle because there are so many freaking ingredients involved. (Here is a recipe). But if you do have the bandwidth to make your own, and can source some of the ingredients from local purveyors, you are very impressive indeed.

4. Pickle your liver and your garnish.
Even if you aren’t into drinking local, you should consider ditching the celery stalk garnish. There is nothing exciting about a celery stalk. Woodring Orchards has a stand in Pike Place Market where you can sample all of its spicy pickles (called Parker Pickles). There’s pickled asparagus, pickled green beans, super-spicy wasabi pickles. They are all fantastic; they will all do wonders for your bloody mary.

Of course, you can always pickle your own veggies too. If that’s what you’re into, consider investing in this book.

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Tags: Local Spirits, Vodka, Bloody Marys

Hi Spot Café to Add a Cocktail Menu

Hooray, a favorite brunch spot is about to get boozier.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jun 02, 2010 at 05:27PM 0 Comments

Little known fact (LKF): At the Hi Spot in Madrona, the brunch destination with which everyone who knows anything is totally in love, you can call ahead and put your name on the waiting list. Thusly your name moves up the list while you’re not even there.

So there you have that: no more waiting for an hour and a half in a packed space while little kids in striped stockings cry a lot. At least not for very long.

That LKF comes from owner Mike Walker, who also informed me that the Hi Spot plans to start serving brunch cocktails as soon as its Class H liquor license comes through, which should be in about a month. Walker says he makes a killer bloody mary, and he’ll also offer vodka drinks with fresh-squeezed juices.

In a final bit of good news, Walker says he’s looking into buying an awning to cover the outdoor patio so that the heated outdoor area can be used three seasons out of the year. This adds 40 more seats, meaning even less time in the waiting line for you.

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Tags: Cocktails, Brunch, Bloody Marys