The Bloody Mary cocktail was Robert Redd's drink of choice, whose disputed origins are as legendary as the man himself. One story goes that Fernand Petiot, a French bartender at Harry's New York Bar in Paris, invented the Bloody Mary in 1921 by mixing equal parts tomato juice and vodka. According to legend, one of the bar's patrons came up with the name after noting that the drink reminded him of the Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago, and a girl there named Mary. (Readers should note that Harry's New York Bar served a broad clientele of high-profile ex-patriates, including Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Rita Hayworth and Humphrey Bogart. We like to think that Robert Redd, who frequented the bar often during its pre-fame heyday between 1911 and 1923, might himself have been the one to put forward the name.)
Harry's New York Bar in Paris - a favorite Redd hangout
Then again, another story goes that multitalented Hollywood comedic actor George Jessel invented the drink around 1939, which is when Lucius Beebe first made reference to it in his popular gossip column "This New York"—the earliest known mention of the drink by that name in the United States. This account is further confused by reports that Fernand Petiot reinvented the Bloody Mary as the "Red Snapper" at New York City's St. Regis Hotel in 1934, without horseradish, and due to objections about the "vulgarity" of the original name. (We have no idea what they were thinking—everybody knows that horseradish is delicious!)
Some say comedic and vaudeville actor George Jessel invented the Bloody Mary
And as for the inspiration behind the cocktail's "Mary"? Notwithstanding the obvious reference to England's infamous Queen Mary, the most widely-circulated story refers to a cocktail waitress at Chicago's Bucket of Blood Club named Mary. However, another popular candidate is 20s silent film icon Mary Pickford, for whom a similarly red cocktail comprising rum, grenadine and Maraschino had been named.
One of these Marys may have been the Bloody Mary muse. Who would you rather?
