The French bartender Fernand Petiot claimed to have invented the Bloody Mary in 1921, well before any of the later claims, according to his granddaughter.[1][failed verification] He was working at the New York Bar in Paris at the time, which later became Harry’s New York Bar, a frequent Paris hangout for Ernest Hemingway and other American migrants.[2] The original cocktail is said to have been created on the spur of the moment, according to the bar’s own traditions, consisting only of vodka and tomato juice.[3] This cocktail was originally referred to as a “Bucket of Blood”.[4] Harry’s Bar also claims to have created numerous other classic cocktails, including the White Lady and the Side Car.[5]

New York’s 21 Club has two claims associated with it. One is that it was invented in the 1930s by bartender Henry Zbikiewicz, who was charged with mixing Bloody Marys. Another attributes its invention to the comedian George Jessel, who frequented the 21 Club.[6] In 1939, Lucius Beebe printed in his gossip column This New York one of the earliest U.S. references to this drink, along with the original recipe: “George Jessel’s newest pick-me-up which is receiving attention from the town’s paragraphers is called a Bloody Mary: half tomato juice, half vodka.”[7][verification needed]

In a 1939 publication by El Floridita called “Floridita Cocktails” a recipe called “Mary Rose” lists the main ingredients of a modern Bloody Mary. This booklet may be one of the earliest publications depicting the name Mary, while using the same ingredients in today’s Bloody Mary.[8]

Fernand Petiot claimed to have invented the modern Bloody Mary in 1934 as a refinement to George Jessel’s drink, at the King Cole Room in New York’s St. Regis Hotel, according to the hotel’s own history.[9] Petiot told The New Yorker in July 1964:

I initiated the Bloody Mary of today. Jessel said he created it, but it was really nothing but vodka and tomato juice when I took it over. I cover the bottom of the shaker with four large dashes of salt, two dashes of black pepper, two dashes of cayenne pepper, and a layer of Worcestershire sauce; I then add a dash of lemon juice and some cracked ice, put in two ounces of vodka and two ounces of thick tomato juice, shake, strain, and pour. We serve a hundred to a hundred and fifty Bloody Marys a day here in the King Cole Room and in the other restaurants and the banquet rooms.”[10]

The cocktail was claimed as a new cocktail under the name “Red Hammer” in Life magazine in 1942, consisting of tomato juice, vodka, and lemon juice.[11] Less than a month later, a Life advertisement for French’s Worcestershire Sauce suggested that it be added to a virgin “Tomato Juice Cocktail” along with tomato juice, salt, and pepper.[12] The addition of salt to the alcoholic beverage was suggested that same year in a story in Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan.[13]

Origin of the name
The name “Bloody Mary” is associated with a number of historical figures—particularly Queen Mary I of England, who was nicknamed “Bloody Mary” in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs for attempting to re-establish the Catholic Church in England—and fictional women from folklore.[citation needed]

Some drink aficionados believe the inspiration for the name was Hollywood star Mary Pickford.[14] Others trace the name to a waitress named Mary who worked at a Chicago bar called the Bucket of Blood.[15] The tradition at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, according to manager Alain Da Silva in a 2011 interview, is that one of the patrons for whom the cocktail was first mixed in 1920 or 1921 declared, “It looks like my girlfriend who I met in a cabaret”; the cabaret’s name was the Bucket of Blood and the girlfriend’s name was Mary, so the patrons and bartender “Pete” Petiot agreed to call it a “Bloody Mary”.[3]

Alternatively, the name may have arisen from “a failure to pronounce the Slav syllables of a drink called Vladimir” in English.[16] This gains some credibility from the anecdotal observation that the customer at The New York Bar for whom Fernand Petiot prepared the drink in 1920/21 was Vladimir Smirnov, of the Smirnoff vodka family.[17]

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