The Hangover Support Society

The Perfect Bloody Mary

A double shot of vodka (go on, you can do it)
A few drops of tobasco
More than a few drops of worcester sauce (anything other than Lea & Perrins is wrong)
About half a teaspoon of horseradish
A shake of celery salt (if you have it)
Lots of freshly ground black pepper
Fill up with tomato juice and a few ice cubes
Give it a good shake, or mix it round the glass alot
Some places like to put lemon or lime in too, but personally i think this ruins it, and sticks of celery just get in the way.

Drink and let the magic kick in....

In search of the perfect bloody mary - The Lowlander

Drury Lane
Nice little Dutch place on Drury lane, with a good selection of bar snacks - cheeses, charcutries, mezze, chips etc. Fairly comfy, with table service (but not the fastest) and they open at 9am! They have a nice range of beers, but enough pleasantries,
Does their bloody mary cut the mustard...
In a word, No.
For £5.95 you get something that we marked a 3/10. They use a decent enough tomato juice, but then they go overkill with the lemon and tobasco (and don't use any worcester sauce, yes i know - sacrilege) There is some celery salt and black pepper involved, and as it goes on it does get a bit easier to drink. But it is massively acidic (not good on a delicate stomach) and firey as hell, my lips were still burning despite killing the taste of the bloody mary with a nice Applebocq beer.
Go here for the beer and the comfort food by all means, but not for their bloody mary attempt.

In search of the perfect bloody mary - Octave

Endell Street, Covent Garden
The bar itself feels very soothing, it is pretty dark, and there is a piano in the corner so i guess it does live music, it seems like a place to spend a chilled out evening with the girls - or somewhere to go on a date (but be warned, they only sell beer by the half, and its quite expensive at £2.10). They have a restaurant, but also offer bar snacks. They are not the cheapest, £4.50 for chips covered either in bacon and cheddar, or goats chees; £4 for olives with flat bread and humous - but the portions arent stingy and they look very tasty indeed.
Their bloody mary, once you have found it on their very extensive cocktail list comes in at £7.50 - one of the most expensive we have found...
Is it worth the money?
For starters the bar tender actually asked us how we would like it, so we are off to a good start - although personally i like them with a bit of spice, we requested a 'medium'. The good start gets better as we watch her make our cocktail because the vodka is freepoured, not measured out. The presence of salt (not the celery variety) and lime is noted, and it could have done with more worcester sauce...
On tasting it is light, fresh and clean - very drinkable. Their cocktail list specifies that it is made with cucumber vodka - and you can really taste the cucumber, but i am sure they would make it with unflavoured vodka if like me you have an aversion to cucumber!
Despite the lime it is not at all acidic, they haven't over done the ice and apart from the cucumber flavour, you cannot taste the alcohol. It also comes garnished with a cherry tomato and slice of cucumber. Pretty darn good - 8/10

In search of the perfect bloody mary - Oporto

This bar is located at the far end of Endell Street away from Covent Garden. It doesnt do food and its not the bast inside - it does have a few tables outside though which is nice if the sun is shining. They have a happy hour (2 for 1 on selected cocktails, including a very nice mojito) which lasts from 5pm-9pm Monday - Wednesday, and 5pm-8pm Thursday-Saturday. The toilets arent great.
But down to business. Their bloody mary is not included in the happy hour and therefore costs £6.50 for one, and we watched it being constructed with a growing sense of dread... they put as much worcester sauce in as was left in the bottle, but it wasnt much. They used schwepps tomato juice, which always tastes fairly concentrated, no salt (celery or otherwise) and no pepper, then they put almost a shot of lemon juice in....
On tasting it had quite an overpowering horseradish flavour, and was fairly acidy due to the amount of lemon juice. But it wasn't AS bad as we had feared. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but it got easier with time. It caused quite a conflict of opinion - some people quite liked it, some could not bare it - so consider yourself warned if you decide to test it out, but the lack of food and comfort doesn't make this place a good hangover hide-out. 5/10.

In search of the perfect bloody mary - The Longacre

www.thelongacre.co.uk
My first impression of this bar is that it is trying to be a more soulful version of all bar one. There seems to be a general after work crowd in there, it is busy but not heaving and there are plenty of seats. Once we have ordered at the bar, we were informed that they do table service. They have a menu with snacks, sharing platters, starters main courses and desserts. They do a deal where you can have 2 courses for £7.95, or 3 for £9.95 5pm-10pm. Their chips are £2, potato wedges £3 and you can get 3 items form their nibbles menu for a tenner. They have a huge selection of the all important yellow food and their menu is more than adequate for the hardly-michelin-starred needs of the hungover. We went for their medditerranean platter at £13.95, it was ok.
But i digress, The bloody mary was £5.20 (we think - not sure exactly as they overcharged us so our bill wasnt correct, it was refunded when we complained). It was made with Big Tom (yay) and then ruined with overkill (boo). It tasted really synthetic, and kinda musty. There was a massively peppery aftertaste and the bar staff were more concerned with performance than taste. The whole thing was too over the top - the fine balance of ingredients present in Big Tom (aka the saviour of bars who can't make bloody marys) was ruined by the over enthusiatic adding of ingredients - but no worcester sauce. 4/10 

In search of the perfect bloody mary - Lab

12 Old Compton Street, W1D 4TQ
www.lab-townhouse.com.
020 7437 7820

Thank Heaven for Lab. It is a cocktail connoisseur's safe haven. Their cocktail list is a book, and all of them are made with care and attention to detail. L.A.B stands for London Academy of Barmen and so a certain amount of professionalism and originality is an unspoken  standard. The bar itself is on two floors decorated in a sort of 70's retro style. There isn't any food on their menu but a visit to their website informs me that they do actually serve thai snacks and platters from the restaurant next door. On the down side it might be a bit too loud for the truly hungover and it doesn't open til 4pm. The service is fairly slow but that is because everyone is making cocktails, they do operate a table service but this will be added on to your bill and it's probably quicker to go to the bar.
Their Bloody Mary is £6.80, and when i order it i am asked how i would like it, the bar tender tastes it as he is making it (Hurray!!) and when i am served the drink, he asks me to taste it and see if it is ok. Everyone else take note - that is how you serve someone a bloody mary.
The drink itself is very good. The glass (which we felt should have been a bit bigger and sturdier by the way) had coursely ground salt, pepper and chilli flakes around the rim, however despite the barman shaking the drink (with ice one assumes) there was definitely an overload of ice in the (small) glass. There didn't seem to be any horseradish but the flavours were done so well that it didn't seem to matter, and at last i had found a place that didnt automatically stick a wedge of lemon in your bloody mary. It did have a splash of sours (fresh lemon and lime juice) but this was balanced out with  the general well rounded taste of the drink. It tasted smooth, not acidic, and very drinkable. 8.5/10

In search of the perfect bloody mary - Cafe Boheme

Old Compton Street.
This cafe/bar has a good french menu, the chips (thin and plentiful but slightly underdone) are £3 and come with a healthy supply of ketchup and mayonnaise. They have outside tables with benches facing the street so it is a great spot for people watching. They have a good wine list and heat lamps outside for when it gets cold. All these good points are what keeps the place going, as they obviously don't survive on the standard of their bloody marys (about £6)
We didn't watch them make it as we parked ourselves at a table outside and made use of the table service. It arrived with two wedges of lemon and a rib of celery. We could see that it had horseradish in it, and ground black pepper, and only a couple of cubes of ice... it looked almost promising (despite the 2 wedges of lemon). However on tasting it was warm, and not dissimilar to nailvarnish remover.
It was incredibly bitter, and you could definitely taste the vodka! (Not good if it reminds you of the night before...) The drink tasted very synthetic, the amount of lemon present made it very acidic, and we were soon cursing the lack of ice, because the drink was warm. Please don't. 2/10