Bloody Mary Bar Planning

I'm throwing a Brunchy Lunchy birthday party for my birthday at the end of the month this year! Part of the menu I plan include

For the brunchy, I'm thinking

• Bacon Bloody Mary bar
• a make your own quiche/mini-pie station
• a veggie hash brown casserole
• Emeril's breakfast casserole (has sausage and eggs)

For the lunchy, I'm thinking

• wine and beer
• stuffed pasta shells with homemade ricotta in marinara
• french "cheese"/tofutti dip and bread,
• chicken meatballs and veggie meatballs
• vegetable tray

Friendly to carnivores and herbivores!

In this post, I'm going to cover what I think are the key things for the Bloody Mary Bar:

The ingredients to have (proceeding forward from left to right or wherever the line starts):

1. Glasses with the option to rim them using a small saucer that has lime juice and kosher salt. I picked out compostable cups that are clear because I won't have enough glasses for my current count of RSVPd guests, which also have the advantage of leaving out a sharpie marker for guests to mark their cup.
2. Ice! Don't forget the ice!
3. A few shot glasses and at least two types of vodka: I like to use regular and also a flavored vodka like smokey Bakon Vodka or spicy New Deal Hot Monkey- for this occasion Bakon. Leave the vodka in the freezer at least overnight to make sure they are nice and cold and don't water down your drink with a lot of ice.
4. Base of regular tomato juice, and I also like V8, partially to increase my perception that this is healthy. I know some people also use Clamato, but since I have to possibly deal with the leftovers, I wasn't planning on offering it- bring your own, sorry!
5. The standard liquid additions of hot sauces: the hot sauces of my house include traditional Cholula, chipotle pepper Tabasco, and Sriracha. I also like to offer BBQ sauce for those who want to go smoky or sweet instead of spicy (or in addition to!). And of course, there will be Worcestershire sauce, and wedges of lemon for squeezin.
6. What really makes a DIY bloody mary bar fun are the accompaniments. Of course the standard celery stalks will be ready standing in a nice iced glass for stirring your drink. And, this being Portland, there's all sorts of pickled garnishes to choose from- little gherkins, pickled green beans, pickled beets, pickled carrots, pickled onions, etc. for your toothpick. The sea salt and fresh ground pepper grinders, and bbq shaker seasoning, appears at this end of the bar as well.
7. Bacon! This is the star of the bloody mary bar. Soak some skewers in water, and then put a slice of thick cut bacon on each one and then into the oven at 350 degrees until done. For the bacon, you can additionally treat it by coating it with brown sugar and pepper to caramelize it.

I wanted to put you in the mood, so here are some archived photos of some bloody marys of my past… varying from Sarabeth's in New York (last bloody mary I photographed), Sepia (most bacon) and Fireside (my first bloody mary bar) in Chicago to Simpatica (best mix I've had in Portland) and Tasty N Sons (best pickles and kick) in Portland.