My personal Jihad against vodka.

My hatred of vodka and people who order it comes down to one main tenet: I can't possibly have any respect for a spirit that aspires, in its highest form, to taste like nothing.  Because that's the point of vodka, right?  To taste like nothing.  Think about it: you wouldn't eat a food that was prized for tasting like nothing.  Why would you subject yourself?  Belvedere, Chopin, Grey Goose (God do I hate Grey Goose.  As my old friend Ben Widlanski would say, I hate Grey Goose with a passion usually reserved for my hatred of Yale): it's all crap.  Don't make some argument about how much "smoother" the high end stuff is.  Fuck you.  You are a corporate marketer's wet dream, is what you are, and you can go get fucked.

All this bile-spewing brings me, inevitably, to the Bloody Mary, one of my all time favorite drinks.  I've tried a bunch of the new-fangly non-vodka ones and they just don't work for me: vodka, in my mind, is the only choice for a Bloody.  I've been dicking around a bunch lately with making infusions and cocktail bitters, simply because it's just so damn easy: in the case of the former, just add fruit/veggie/herb/miscellanious flavoring agent to a spirit; with the latter, do the same but with the highest proof neutral spirit you can find (I use the unusually pluralized Devil's Springs brand 160 proof vodka, which, interestingly enough, doesn't seem to have a website even though it has an Urban Dictionary reference).   Anyway, I've had some hits and misses over the last couple of months (sour cherries in Hudson Corn Whiskey make for a great Manhattan; cinnamon bitters were rough and over-extracted), but the trial and error is part of the fun.

In the back of my mind, however, my real interest has been in making something for the perfect Bloody, and after a trip to the farmer's market yesterday I set to work.  Using the tried and true kitchen-sink approach, I added: cucumber, tomato, cilantro, fresh horseradish, tomatillo, pea shoots, sun-dried tomato, shisho leaf, lemon peel, and shallot.  How will it taste?  Beats me, but for right now it sure looks pretty.

[UPDATE: I've been tasting daily (sometime twice a day!) and have been steadily making adjustments.  The pea shoots took about 12 hours to fully infuse so they came out on Monday, leaving a bright, grassy flavor.  The horseradish was out next, and more tomatoes went in.  Yesterday signaled the end of the horseradish and some more cucumber.  Tastes pretty good so far!]