Bloody Mary Mix - Best Tomato?

[jerrytoo]

If anyone that likes a good bloody mary mix, like the high dollar over the counter commercial mixes, and that same person is also a knowledgeable tomato grower,,

What tomato, or combination of tomatoes, would he/she plant for the perfect base for a good DIY home brewed BM Mix?

Or ponder the thought a minute and take a good educated guess as to what would probably make a god mix?

Or does it really matter what tomato?

For a year or so I have been making my own BM Mix from the canned over the counter generic tomato paste but thinking about, even cheaper and also good, just creating my own homemade mix, to suit for my tastes, from my own homegrown tomatoes, so might as well plant the best type I can if I 'take this new approach for a new mix recipe his spring.

I am also planting several hot peppers that might also be incorporated into the mix recipe somehow.

jerry

[Dillbert]

hmmmmm. how much you drink? (g)

one-two tomato plants can produce enough 'schufft' for multiple giga-gallons of vodka.

but the bottom line is:

"paste tomatoes" - these are favored for red-sauces - the theory is they have less 'water' ie more 'meat' per fruit.

regardless, _any_ tomato can be skinned / cored / etc - and cooked down to tomato juice, sauce, paste consistency. there's a whole community of techniques regarding getting the skins/seeds/core hard bits out of the "final product"

once you have a thickish tomato juice - the next question is how to keep it?
can / freeze / ?

bottom line, one needs to find a tomato that has excellent "taste" suited to the purpose of dying in vodka _and_ the best can / freeze options that 'preserve' that characteristic.

I drink my vodka on the rocks, so nadda-lotta-help here.....

[jerrytoo]

I haven't thought about how many bloody marys I drink but thinking about it now, I imagine I would use 1 quart of mix in a month so 12 bottles to get me from one harvest season to the next. With friend over occasionally it wouldn't hurt to try to come up with 24 quarts for a years supply, can always share with friends if I should end up with a good recipe.

I could just come up with a good paste to freeze, or can, and mix each monthly batch as I go. Sort of the way I do it now with the canned paste.

I don't like a watery thin BM like some of the commercial mixes are, or even a BM drink ordered at the neighborhood pub.
The secret for me, my preference, is to have a creamy consistent drink similar consistence of a creamy plain straight tomato juice. A little too thick but when vodka is added to it, it's just right,, creamy wise.
The easy part for me making the mix is getting the taste I like. Tweak and taste, tweak and taste, tweak and taste, till,,,,,,,,,,,,

I had thought that I would just try to freeze whatever I do, or come up with,, KISS.

[mattie g]

I don't know if I can help on suggestions for specific tomatoes to use to make the tomato juice for bloody marys, but I can state that my bloody marys have been a hit over the years, and that I attribute much of my success to my "secret ingredient" - the juice from my pico de gallo. I prefer to use San Marzanos for my pico, but sometimes I'll use some big, beefy Brandywines if I've got them on hand. They obviously tend to have a lot more juice than the San Marzanos, so I get more of the "secret ingredient" if I use them.

Mmmm...I could go for a nice stiff Saturday morning drink right now!

[jerrytoo]

Mmmm...I could go for a nice stiff Saturday morning drink right now!

I'll drink to that.

My morning bloody marys tend to be always on Sundays for some reason.
I get some kind of a guilt feeling if I drink in the morning time on any other day, for some reason it seems alright Sunday AM.

[mattie g]

Got things to do on Sunday, plus the next day is Monday, and I never like getting the work week started out on a rough note.

[jerrytoo]

I'm retired so every night is Saturday night and every day is Sunday.

Rarely I do but when I do have a bloody mary in the morning, I won't have more than two drinks so just that little bit wouldn't have any effect, or cause a rough note, the next day.

[mattie g]

You have far too much self-control. Better man than I.

[jerrytoo]

You have far too much self-control. Better man than I.

That two Bloody Mary rule only applies to morning time. I cave big time on self control after the sun goes down and in for the night.

This thread caused me to cave last night so I broke out the canned paste and did end up doing four 50/50s,, slept like a baby last night I did.

[TZ -OH6]

I've never made tomato juice, but the unseasoned tomato sauce I have made, tasted nothing like it (or Campbell's Tomato soup either) -- I suppose because I didn't start with a truckload of half moldy, tasteless field tomatoes and then dump a lot of salt in. Canned paste is more or less the same, but cooked down under vacuum.

Not withstanding that worchestershire sauce ruins the flavor of tomato juice in bloody mary mix IMO, I would try.

A combination of red-pink oxheart tomatoes to give a savory 'beefy' flavor.
or
Costoluto Genoves or a combination of pink beefsteak varieties with 10% Limmony (a tangy yellow) added. The flavor will be on the sweet side with a hint of citrus.


Juice from black tomatoes, green when ripe, or orange tomatoes might taste a little to odd.

[tomc]

Go long with salt and lemon juice when you can. A shot of beet juice also markedly helps both color and sweetness.

The beet juice is more needed when whites or dark heirloom tomatoes get used, inasmuch as they tend to can browner juice...

[sepeters]

Last year I gave my boss (she is obsessed with bloody marys) about 20 extra tomato plants and she said she preferred the taste of the Nebraska Wedding tomatoes to all the others in her homemade mix. I don't drink vodka, so I can't personally weigh in, but she's pretty particular and drinks lots of bloody marys, so I figured she'd know. She also liked the flavor the unblanched, homegrown celery added.