Bartenders Transform Bloody Mary Into Nighttime Drink

Bloody Marys are generally positioned at the end of our drinking sequences.

Savory with nose-clearing horseradish and pepper, the drink is one of the best salves we know for rectifying a drinking spree.

But Bloody Marys' efficacy as a hangover cure is no reason to reserve the drink solely for the daylight hours. More and more, bartenders are taking the Bloody Mary's elements and rearranging them into more evening-suitable sipping. Call it a thank-you for past headaches cured.

Essex Bar in Seattle, the new project from the team behind Delancey, uses gin and tomato water as the base of its Queen Mary. Chile brine gives the drink savory heft without the straw-clogging pulp of a traditional Bloody.

Charles Joly, who was just named head bartender at The Aviary in Chicago, uses liquid nitrogen to make a basil granita, which he mixes with aquavit, clarified tomato water, lime juice and galangal syrup.

At Salt of the Earth in Pittsburgh, a tomato purée meets gin, Bénédictine, sake and salted lemon juice (see the recipe). Served in a Collins glass over ice, the rose-colored drink is equally suited to a glitzy evening as it is to next-day a.m. wreckage.