It is one of the few cocktails traditionally served in the morning, along with the
Screwdriver and the Mimosa.
Bartender Fernand Petiot of Harry's New York Bar in Paris claims to have invented the drink
sometime during the 1920s.
Says Petiot, "One of the boys suggested we call the drink 'Bloody Mary' because it reminded him of the
Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago, and a girl there named Mary."
Petiot moved from the New York Bar to its namesake, the City of New York, in 1934,
where he worked at the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis Hotel.
The hotel unsuccessfully tried to rename the drink to the "Red Snapper".
To suit New Yorker tastes, he added spices that were not in his original recipe, including
black pepper, cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, and Tabasco sauce.
If the drink is served without the vodka, it is called a Virgin Mary.
In folklore, Bloody Mary is the name of a children's game in which a ghost or witch of the same name (or sometimes other names, such as Mary Worth) is said to appear in a mirror when summoned. One of the more common ways participants attempt to make her appear is to stand before a mirror and repeat her name three times, though there are many variations.
In some versions of the legend, the summoner must say "Bloody Mary, I got your baby" (or "I killed your baby"). Bloody Mary is often believed to be the spirit of a mother who murdered her children, or a woman who was murdered shortly before or after her wedding.
Similar rituals are used to summon spirits in the movies Beetlejuice(1988) andCandyman(1992).
