Bloody Mary

Pat: It’s the last chapter of the book, right? Gina: It is. Pat: Our last chance to use barbecue sauce, right? Gina: Did we use it in the dessert chapter? Pat: I don’t think so. Gina: Well, okay, then. Neely’s Barbecue Sauce and your favorite spicy morning libation are a match made in heaven. Using robust vegetable juice like V8 (in place of tomato juice) helps balance out the flavor of the tangy sauce. To make a Virgin Mary, skip the vodka and add an extra squeeze or two of fresh lemon juice.

This ultra-refreshing tomato water makes great use of an abundance of tomatoes and works well as a virgin summer cooler, too.

This savory, fresh, and colorful drink was inspired by Adam Seger of Nacional 27. It has its roots in the Bloody Mary but skips the vodka, subbing in cachaça, a distant cousin of rum. Raid the summer garden for cherry tomatoes and basil in season!

In July, the abundance of ripe tomatoes means making your own tomato juice is a breeze, and fresh juice, in turn, means a truly superb Bloody Mary. With a range in the amounts of horseradish, Tabasco, and lemon juice, you can customize the drinks to your liking. The final flourish, rimming the glasses with sea salt and black pepper, adds a slight tingle to each sip.

Bartender Naren Young developed these cocktails at Bobo Restaurant in New York to showcase the flavors of cachaca, a Brazilian spirit made from distilled sugarcane juice.

Shrimp cocktail meets everyone's favorite Sunday-morning drink. In other words, this is a vodka-infused shrimp cocktail in a spoon.

A playful twist on the Bloody Mary, served frozen as a granita with a little vodka poured over. The Tolstoi is a full-flavored red hybrid tomato. If you can't find it, the Brandywine would also be delicious.

This recipe is adapted from Audrey Saunders, owner of Pegu Club in New York City. The slightly bubbly riff on the Bloody Mary goes wonderfully with Oysters on the Half Shell with Spicy Vinegar. For expert advice on pairing cocktails with food, click here. Editor's note: Saunders suggests that you use your favorite Bloody Mary recipe for this drink. In case you don't have one, we've provided one of our best.

We'll toast to this vitamin C-packed drink from Neal Fraser, chef at Grace Restaurant in Los Angeles.

This classic tomato juice cocktail gets extra flavor from aquavit, a distilled spirit infused with fragrant herbs and spices.

This drink was featured as a Cocktail of the Month.

My favorite recipe for the Bloody emerges from years of experimentation. Think Jonas Salk behind a bar. What I have come up with in my lab is:

This recipe combines the cool taste of cucumber with the flavors of a Bloody Mary. You'll have to prepare 2 batches for 12 drinks. If you have a small blender, you may have to make smaller batches.

Everyone seems to have a preference when it comes to Bloody Marys — whether it's the brand of tomato juice or how much celery salt and Tabasco to use. We found this recipe to be nicely balanced, though by all means add or subtract to your liking. We also discovered that it's worth buying new horseradish: If the jar in your refrigerator looks brownish or dry, it has been in there too long and will taste very bitter.

The beef bouillon makes this robust cocktail a little more bullish than its cousin, the Bloody Mary.