The 14 Bloody Mary Garnishes You Should Avoid At All Costs, According To A Bartender

I'm a huge proponent of garnishing cocktails. The right additions can improve the entire drinking experience by enhancing the taste, aroma, and of course, the visual appeal. However, we need to talk about bloody marys.

Bloody marys have been around for at least a century, although they're admittedly something of an acquired taste. The savory, spicy, tomato-based cocktail is typically enjoyed at brunch, and commonly ordered to help ease the discomfort caused by the previous night's excessive drinking. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a hangover cure; although, I suppose if you have enough of these vodka-based cocktails, you might not notice your headache anymore.

I personally love bloody marys, and I've experimented extensively with different recipes during my time as a cocktail bartender. I'm not a purist when it comes to the recipe either; while simple concoctions are fine, you can make gloriously complex and delicious versions if you balance the ingredients properly. My issue, rather, is with the never-ending trend of garnish one-upmanship. There are some excellent garnishes you can use to adorn a bloody mary, and some that only exist to gain attention on social media or disguise a subpar cocktail. While the reasoning behind many of these selections is entirely objective, there are also some subjective views that can back them. And if you love bloody marys with an entire meal balanced on top, that's on you. 

One of the more ubiquitous bloody mary garnishes that people refuse to let die is the cheeseburger, or its miniaturized sibling: the slider. I have nothing against cheeseburgers, but why are we trying to stick them on top of cocktails?

Firstly, bloody marys are a brunch cocktail, and I don't really consider cheeseburgers a breakfast food, even if the flavors work well together. Secondly, as a customer, I don't like waiting forever for my drink to appear because a chef has to make me a burger to garnish it. I've also made enough of these drinks during my time as a bartender to know that they already take a long time to construct compared to other cocktails. There's nothing worse than seeing a bloody mary sit on the bar for far too long while the kitchen has to prepare a single garnish — and it's as much of pain for the staff as it is for you. There's also the risk that the grease from the burger is going to drip down into the liquid, ruining the taste and the mouthfeel of the painstakingly prepared cocktail.

I adore food, and I'm as much a fan of fine dining as I am of homemade comfort grub. That said, I find lobster to be little more than an overrated butter-to-mouth delivery system. To each their own, but even if lobster was my all-time favorite dish, I wouldn't want one sticking out of my bloody mary.

For starters, I feel like it's an excuse to charge an extortionate price for what should be a reasonably affordable cocktail. Also, the flesh of these crustaceans is notoriously delicate, so lobsters should be grilled or cooked in their shells. And the last thing I want to do at brunch is make a mess trying to get chunks of meat out of the fiddly carapace. I'm bad enough at extracting seafood from its shell when it isn't covered in tomato juice. I also feel like you'll run into the same issues as the cheeseburger in terms of butter and seafood-infused grease getting absorbed into the cocktail itself. I'm not saying there isn't a place for a fishy bloody mary variant — I'll get to that shortly — but this isn't the way to do it.

Eggs are inarguably a brunch food — I'll give you that — but I don't know why you'd want one floating on top of your drink. Thankfully, I've only seen boiled or pickled eggs used as a bloody mary garnish, but I still think it's a strange choice.

Regular boiled eggs do very little to improve the taste of the cocktail, nor do they enhance the aroma or visual appeal of the beverage. I can see why a pickled egg would seem like a good idea. Pickled and fermented garnishes can be an excellent choice from a flavor perspective, as they boost the savoriness and acidity of the drink by adding depth and a wonderful tanginess. However, the texture of a boiled or pickled egg just doesn't work, in my opinion. A bloody mary garnish should have some bite to it –- something that contrasts well with the smooth, juicy liquid in the glass –- and eggs are simply too soft. I'm also going to make the assumption that nobody is crazy enough to use a soft-boiled egg, so once again, you have to wait longer for your cocktail while someone out back prepares the garnish.

Like lobster tail, adorning a bloody mary with oysters tends to be an excuse to give the drink a more premium feel and price tag. I'm not against the general flavor pairing whatsoever, as the briny, creamy mollusks are a great match for the spicy, rich tomato juice.

However, I've seen bloody marys garnished with oysters in a couple of ways, and neither really works from a visual standpoint. The first method involves removing the oyster from its shell, spearing it with a cocktail stick or skewer, and balancing it on the rim of the glass or floating it in the liquid. Let's be honest, the shell is what makes oysters look elegant. Without it, they just look like boogers on a stick, regardless of how delicious they are. The other way to use an oyster as a garnish is just to balance the whole thing, shell and all, on top of the glass. At this point, why not use a side plate? All you're doing is making it harder to add other garnishes or get a straw in the glass.

After seeing burgers used to garnish bloody marys, I can sort of understand why someone would try the same thing with a hot dog. They both fall into that greasy, guilty pleasure, comfort food category.

They're not the same thing, though. While I'm not a fan of garnishing a bloody mary with a cheeseburger, it at least makes sense from a flavor point of view. Tomato, cheese, and beef naturally complement one another, but this isn't the case with hot dogs. The processed meat of the sausage clashes horribly with the ingredients in a bloody mary. And even if you can get past that, I still don't know why you can't eat your hot dog off a plate. They're even more likely to fall apart than a burger, so if your hot dog includes any extra toppings — arguably, it should — then they're just going to end up falling into the bloody mary. And, I still stand by the fact that I don't want to wait ages for my drink while someone prepares me a meal that doesn't need to be served at the same time.

The first time I saw sushi garnishing a bloody mary, I thought it was a bizarre joke. Again, I'm a massive sushi fan and will stuff my face with sashimi, maki, and rolls long past the point that I'm full, but this isn't the way to enjoy it.

My main gripe is that sushi rolls — the style of sushi I've seen most commonly used on bloody marys — are extremely delicate. It doesn't take much for the tiny bits of rice or diced ingredients to start falling apart, and I don't want to have to scoop these out of my drink. I'm also not completely sold on introducing seafood to a bloody mary. There's already a delicious, well-established cocktail that offers a fishy twist on a bloody mary, called the Caesar. It's Canada's national drink, and it uses a blend of clam and tomato juice, inventively called Clamato. Using Clamato for the drink's base gives it a sharp, umami-packed profile, so I'd suggest saving your fish-flavored garnishes for a Caesar instead.

I'm yet to discover a cheese I don't love. Admittedly, I haven't tried Sardinian casu marzu cheese, a maggot-infested dairy delicacy, and have no intention to. Either way, I won't deny that cheese is a great match for the savory flavors of a bloody mary. Although, I wouldn't use it as a garnish.

I'll confess that I've tried it myself, even going as far as attempting to use cheese to fat-wash a pasta-sauce-flavored vodka I infused for a particularly audacious bloody mary recipe. It was a complete disaster. I find that cheese, like eggs, just doesn't work from a textural standpoint. Cheese also tends to clash with the high acidity of a bloody mary, creating a confusion of flavors in the mouth. I will concede that a grilled cheese sandwich is a wonderful accompaniment to the cocktail, as the toasted bread provides the right level of textural contrast. However, I've also seen whole sandwiches used as a garnish. Unless you want a mouthful of soggy breadcrumbs, just serve it on a plate, please.

Using beef jerky to garnish a bloody mary isn't the worst idea in the world; there's definitely some cohesion among the flavors. I've even encountered recipes for making bloody mary-inspired jerky seasoning, but I can't support sticking the dried meat in the drink itself.

I believe that when it comes to edible garnishes, taking small, quick bites between sips of the cocktail is how you best appreciate the combination of flavors. Pop an olive in your mouth between sips of a dirty martini or nibble a piece of crunchy, refreshing cucumber while you enjoy a gin and tonic. Once you've got a mouthful of jerky, you're going to be chewing it for a while. I also feel like the taste lingers too long on the palate. If you do want to beef up your bloody mary, try making a Bloody Bull instead. By substituting part of the tomato juice in your recipe for beef broth, you can get that rich, meaty character without messing with the flow of your libations.

There's a good reason as to why so many food garnishes consist of leafy greens. Flavor aside, they tend to offer a great color contrast to most other ingredients that make dishes visually pop. They're also cheap, quick, and easy to use. Given the deep red hue of a bloody mary, you can see why salad leaves end up making their way into the cocktail.

Often, the leaves are skewered alongside other, similarly contrasting garnish ingredients or placed inside the liquid so it appears like they're blooming up and out of the glass. I'll admit that this makes a bloody mary look very pretty. But, it does nothing whatsoever to contribute to the taste or aroma of the cocktail. I also struggle to find the appeal of munching on a soggy salad leaf. A mint leaf floating on top of a refreshingly tart Southside is a different story, and I'm a fan of using fresh herbs that offer a perfumed approach to each sip. But lettuce? There's no world in which a damp, flavorless leaf improves a bloody mary.

Let me be clear that I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to crank up the heat of your bloody mary. It's one of the few cocktails where you've got a lot of control over the spice factor, and if you like yours tongue-tinglingly hot, there's nothing wrong with that. However, whether it's in food or a drink, spice should be introduced in a way that complements, rather than masks, the flavors.

Typically, hot sauce is the best way to spice up a bloody mary, as there are plenty of varieties to choose from. Though, you can add stir in some dried spices too. A great bartender should be able to bring the heat without unbalancing the other ingredients. My issue with using chili peppers as a garnish is that it implies the liquid component hasn't been made to your tastes, and the spice will probably override the nuanced, savory flavors of the bloody mary. I worked at a place that made superb bloody marys and garnished them with bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers. If you are going to garnish the drink with a chili, a mildly sweet pepper like jalapeño works well. But you should avoid those that don't add anything to the flavor.

I've already made my opinion on crustacean garnishes pretty clear, but I'm going to reiterate them because I've seen shrimp-garnished bloody marys all over the place. That said, I'll give them a free pass if they're atop a Caesar because of the complementary flavors.

I'm less likely to get annoyed by a shrimp garnish if its shell has been removed; I don't want to have to work to get to the edible part. Once that shell's filled up with liquid from the cocktail, it's going to splatter all over the place when you try to pull the thing apart. If you opt for a cooked shrimp garnish, you're also going to have to contend with butter and oil mixing into the cocktail itself, which messes with the mouthfeel and taste of the bloody mary. And if you want to actually enjoy the shrimp, you're also going to have to tackle them fairly quickly. They start to taste rubbery once they begin to cool down, so they're not ideal if you like to savor your drink.

Given the choice, I'd take a cold slice of leftover pizza for brunch over an eggs Benedict any day of the week. I'm not debating its status as a brunch food. I am, however, perplexed as to why it seems like a good idea to garnish a bloody mary with pizza.

I have to assume that people are using cold pizza, because there's no way a freshly baked slice is going to stay in one piece when you try and poke a stick through it and balance it on a bloody mary. Aside from the risk of burning yourself on hot tomato sauce or melted cheese, there's a good chance the hot, greasy debris will end up at the bottom of your cocktail glass. As long as you've not got some really weird toppings, the pizza flavors will work extremely well with the cocktail flavors, so by all means, pair the two. Just eat the pizza off a plate. Or straight out of the box. Just don't put it on a stick and plant it in your bloody mary like a deliciously inconvenient flag.

You're probably wondering who on Earth would try and garnish a bloody mary with candy. Unfortunately, this is genuinely something I've seen, but the good news is that it tends to only happen once a year.

Given the bloody mary's name and its blood-like color, each Halloween, a bartender somewhere decides that it would be fun to make a spooky version of the drink. Instead of the classic garnishes, they pop a gummy spider on top of the cocktail, or maybe a sugary eyeball. I'll give them points for creativity, but if you want to introduce some sweetness to the drink, this isn't the way to do it. Generally speaking, I'd completely avoid sugary garnishes on such a savory drink. If you do want to add a hint of sweetness, try something like candied bacon or a drizzle of balsamic vinegar instead. These will actually balance and complement the other ingredients, rather than send them spinning off in all sorts of unpalatable directions.

I'm going to round this list off with arguably the most contentious entry — considering celery is the most traditionally-accepted bloody mary garnishes of all time. I just don't like the taste of the stuff. It's simultaneously tasteless yet astringent, and I want nothing to do with it. However, I do find celery salt – or one of its substitutes – to be a nice seasoning to add to the cocktail or to rim the glass with.

For me, crunchy, pickled veggies, like carrots, asparagus, and string beans, are the perfect garnish. Olives and cornichons are great too, and perhaps a little pickled onion. I'll generally add a wedge of lemon or lime as well, especially if I'm making a bloody mary for someone else. This way, they can give the wedge a squeeze to up the citrus to their liking. As I said before, by all means, give any of these cocktail toppings a try if you'd like, but beware of an extravagantly garnished bloody mary. In my experience, fewer adornments mean the bartender knows that the magic is in the liquid itself.