On this episode of the “Cocktail College,” host Tim McKirdy sits down with Eric “ET” Tecosky, a former bartender and now founder and owner of Dirty Sue Premium Olive Juice, to chat about the Bloody Mary. Discover everything you need to know about the Bloody Mary and learn ET’s recipe. Tune in for more.
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ET’s Bloody Mary Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ ounce ET’s spice mix (recipe follows)
- 3 ½ ounces tomato juice
- 1 ½ ounces vodka
- Lemon juice, to taste
Directions
- Add all ingredients to a pint glass with ice.
- Roll shake between that and a separate glass of sufficient size until chilled.
- Pour Bloody Mary and ice into a chilled Collins glass or goblet.
- Garnish with a celery stalk, lemon wedge, a few olives, bacon, and pickled vegetables of your choice.
ET’s Spice Mix Ingredients
- 6 ounces Dirty Sue Premium Olive Juice
- 4 flat teaspoons black pepper
- 3 flat teaspoons celery salt
- 3 flat teaspoons Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
- 6 flat teaspoons prepared horseradish
- 3 ounces Worcestershire sauce
- ½ ounce Tabasco
Or Check Out the Conversation Here
Tim McKirdy: Yes, let’s rock on. We’re dropping into your feed this Thursday as every Thursday, but it feels a little bit like a Sunday morning this morning, and you know why that is. Because we got ET on the show here, and we’re about to talk all things Bloody Marys. ET, how’s it going, man?
Eric “ET” Tecosky: Great. Happy to be on the show. Thank you.
T: We’re so glad to have you. This has been a cocktail that I’m surprised we haven’t covered before, and I have some very strong positive opinions about, but also I think there’s a lot of avenues for us to explore from crazy garnishes, base spirits, and many other things. I’m looking forward to getting into this. First thing off the bat, what’s your relationship with the Bloody Mary? How do you feel about this drink?
ET: I would say I have a very strong relationship with the Bloody Mary. Well, I worked at a bar in L.A. for about 15 years, and it was a pet project of mine to try and perfect the Bloody Mary. By the way, this is a bar restaurant that does not open on the weekend, so there’s no brunch. It wasn’t like Bloody Marys were flying off the shelves, but I felt like if we’re going to serve on it, it should be as good as it possibly can be. I feel like I’ve done my due diligence in trying to perfect the Bloody Mary.
T: It’s all about that mix, isn’t it? It really is one of those things. This should have been a rabbit hole that maybe more people could have gone down in the pandemic. Forget sourdough, forget starters. Let’s perfect your Mary mix first, please.
ET: Right. In defense — not in defense of sourdough people, but just as another version. I think, let’s pretend that was your thing, sourdough bread, and then you nailed it. You’re hitting on all cylinders and you bring a loaf of sourdough to my house, I guarantee you I will love it. Now, if you told me that your Bloody Mary mix is perfect, and you brought it to my house, it’s possible that what your taste buds dig are not what my taste buds dig. It’s hard to really say, it’s once I just said, I tried to perfect it. I don’t think there’s one Bloody Mary for everyone.
T: That is a really great point about this cocktail and the mix in particular. It really does get so personal because you talk about things like spice and savouriness, pickle juice. We’ll get into all these things. Is someone going a little Clamato, Caesars? That is a weird concept, especially to see that not in the refrigerated section on store shelves, basically tomato juice, but clam juice in it. It’s a tough one to get your head around.
ET: Yes, that definitely started as a regional thing in Canada and caught on a little bit down here, but I don’t know that it ever caught on for me.
T: No. I was in Canada earlier this year, and there was, I believe it was the national, might have been international, but the Caesar Festival going on in Calgary. I sadly missed it. It wasn’t why I was there. Maybe I’ll go back for that one next year, but anyway, we digressed a little. As always, let’s start with the history a little bit here, too, before we get into some of the other things we’ve discussed. When did people first start bringing together tomato juice and other ingredients and booze, and when does it become also a hangover cure? Has that always been the case? What do we know about the history of this drink?
The History of The Bloody Mary
ET: As most drinks, the history is a little bit muddled. In this situation, there’s a decent amount of confidence that they did pinpoint where this started. There’s a guy named Ferdinand; I guess people call them Pete — A French last name that I’m probably going to butcher right now, but I think it’s Petiot. I did Google translate that. Google’s right, that’s how you say it. Now he went out to work at Harry’s New York bar in Paris in the ’20s. At some point, he said, that’s where he invented it but his story changed later in life because he was brought back to the U.S., I’m assuming after Prohibition, he worked at the 21 Club, and then he ended up at the St. Regis Hotel. One of the regulars at the 21 Club, I think after he left an actor named George Jessel, he also claimed he invented a drink, but he says 1939 and then after that kind of came out, I think Pete said, “No, no, I invented it in 1934 when I was at St. Regis.” What’s odd is, Walter Winchell, who was a big writer back in the day, did write about George Jessel, that was him and his friend’s drink so it was in print that George Jessel put vodka and tomato juice together. Then this other guy, this like renowned chef and author, Lucius Beebe, also wrote about George Jessel putting vodka and tomato juice together. What’s funny, so after, Pete says, “I did it in France, no, I did it in 1934.” In 1964, he was interviewed, and he said when he first heard it was a Bloody Mary all it was was vodka and tomato juice. He’s the one that added Worcestershire, cayenne, lemon juice, salt, pepper, tobacco, and celery salt. He kind of refined his story, like maybe he heard about this idea of putting vodka in tomato juice and then said, you can do better. Look, on the one hand, most drinking history probably goes this way where a lot of people lay claim to drinks, and then you slowly start uncovering the truth. I feel like this drink probably had more than one inventor as it evolved into the cocktail we know today. Maybe George Jessel did put vodka and tomato juice together, and then maybe Pete perfected it, or at least put it more in line with what we’re used to today. There’s history of that too, right? If you think about the screwdriver, somebody put vodka in orange juice, and then somebody else added a little bit of Galliano and now it’s a Harvey Wallbanger. We gave it another name, it’s the same drink with one extra ingredient at least, Petiot put it in at least 10 more ingredients. I would give it to both of them.
T: Yes, they can share this one. We’ll let them both do it.
ET: Yes. I was just thinking of the name of the drink. I’m not sure. It’s also a little confusing about where that name came from. A lot of people say Queen Mary I, it was named after her because of her violent path of destruction when she ruled. Then also, Harry from Harry’s New York Bar, his great-grandson I think he said that Pete when he was back in New York, was enamored with this dancer he met named Mary and she worked at a club in Chicago called The Bucket of Blood. He says that’s where it came from.
T: Sounds like a kind of a character that might feature in a Beatles song I feel like “Bloody Mary.” I don’t know.
ET: Yes, there isn’t one yet but maybe when they go through, like all their last recordings, they’ll find that one. There’s no famous drink, right, without Hemingway having some say in the matter. Some people give him credit although there’s not really any facts other than Hemingway said it. There is his recipe out there, and his recipe was batched in a pitcher where most people make it as a cocktail. His was made in the pitcher so that doesn’t make sense if you’re thinking about Hemingway’s drinking history.
T: Did he bring anything new to the table that was good? Have you ever tried out his recipe? He has previous. The stuff I saw seemed pretty standard. It didn’t seem like anything was in there like, “Oh, wow, that would be interesting to try.” It just seemed like he made a lot of it more quantity over quality. Just within the realm of drinks in general, there is a fascinating thing about the Bloody Mary, which is you spoke about trying to perfect your mix and I’m sure the same has been true for so many people. There’s not really that many other cocktails where you are allowed such customization and it still remains true to the essence of the drink and what the drink is. You can’t start adding ingredients to Daiquiris and being like, this is my Daiquiri. You’re like, no, this is my riff on a Daiquiri where I also use this. The variations between Bloody Marys from one to another, like you said before, they can be wild.
ET: I think you have a lot of open runway when it comes to saying this is a Bloody Mary and this is my version. No one’s going to say that’s not a Bloody Mary. Whereas like a Daiquiri or a Margarita or drink like that, yes, you can make many types of Margaritas and still call them a Margarita. If someone ordered a Margarita, they would expect one drink, not your crazy version of it.
T: Amazing. Then on that historical path to bring us up to speed up to where we are today, we all know brunch is this phenomenon. It’s a beast. Whether you’d like it or not, it’s out there, it exists. People enjoy it. Actually, I’m not sure anyone enjoys brunch, but people do brunch. It’s become a verb as well as a noun. What’s been your experience? Because you’ve been in the bar industry for a long time now. What’s been your experience with this drink? Is this a classic that’s never gone out? Has it seen something of a resurgence in popularity or a surge in popularity in recent years with these garnishes and stuff that have gone quite wild and are certainly fun? I’m not being skeptical about those.
ET: I don’t know that the Bloody Mary ever went out of style per se. Maybe when someone invented bottomless Mimosas, it took a hit. It’s always been one of two or three drinks that are wildly popular for brunch. In American culture today, if you go to a buffet or if you go to breakfast, there is a possibility that tomato juice isn’t even offered. I’m not talking about a bar. If you just went to a breakfast spot, tomato juice might possibly not even be offered as a juice. Besides orange juice, grapefruit juice. Back in the day when the drink came about tomato juice was a really big thing as just something to drink when you’re having breakfast or wake up in the morning. I think in the ’20s is when we’re able to mass produce and mass market canned tomato juice, which opened it up to a much bigger audience than restaurants that were literally making it themselves. That made it super accessible and that’s around the time the drink became a cocktail. I think the advent of technology really boosted the possibility of tomato juice being the base of a cocktail. Then it already was a morning beverage, much like orange juice. What’s better than tomato juice with your breakfast? Tomato juice, that’s a little bit of vodka. I think that’s what started it off as a quote-unquote breakfast or brunch cocktail because the base of it was already being used during that meal. Why not? It is a pretty dense cocktail. It’s not a light porch pounder. I think it serves its purpose. If you want to talk about why brunch, the obvious one is the hair of the dog. If you went out and you had a few drinks, what’s the best way to erase the effects of all that drinking?
T: Get back to your level.
ET: Start drinking again. There’s that. The one thing I’ve learned, which I wish I really learned in my youth: hydration. That’s key. Drinking water before you start drinking alcohol, while you’re drinking alcohol, after you drink alcohol, that really is the key. You could argue that the vitamin C and the electrolytes and tomato juice can also aid that process, which would give it that morning cocktail allure. Then again, tomato juice becoming popular once it was put in a can and making it more accessible to everyone, helped make that a breakfast brunch drink, I think.
T: Totally. I think too, all right, maybe this is more of a modern thing, but you mentioned those bottomless Mimosas and whatnot, or maybe even, I don’t know, you’re in New Orleans and you’re drinking French 75’s. Those are drinks that comparatively speaking are much easier to pound than a Bloody Mary. If it is a case of you’re having some alcohol intake the morning after, this is a slow release, this isn’t like, ”Oh my God, we’re an hour in and I’ve had four Mimosas.” Do you know what I mean?
ET: Right. Also, you think about the whole phenomenon of bottomless Mimosas. I guarantee you the bubble portion of that drink costs about $2.99 a bottle. You know what I mean? You’re not looking at a craft cocktail when the word bottomless precedes it unless maybe you’re at the Four Seasons or something like that and it costs $89 for bottomless Mimosas versus you’re on Bourbon Street and it’s $5.99.
T: That is worrying. Tomorrow juice though. Here’s another weird one. One of those ingredients or combustibles I guess, or ingestibles that somehow continue to be popular on planes and planes only really, you get your can of V8, another one’s really like ginger ale. Not many. I don’t see a lot of people cracking open cans of ginger ale in normal life. I see them on planes and people go for them. Do you think it’s just that association with the tomato juice, too, or does it have any purported effects that help calm your stomach or something? Why do people drink tomato juice on planes?
ET: Oddly enough, I have done some drinks for airlines in the past and there’s science in drinking on airplanes. What I discovered — I didn’t do the research myself, I just compiled a bunch of other really much smarter than me people’s research. When you’re on an airplane, your taste buds change and it takes more potent flavors to get through. Bloody Mary with all of its salt and spice and pepper and umami flavors do better. Ginger is also a spicy component. It makes sense that the things you’re talking about are really popular on airplanes because your palate craves it more than bland when you’re on an airplane.
T: Yes, that makes so much sense. I’d considered that before from a food perspective because, why do you think we always see either mushroom dishes or chicken dishes or even, depending where you’re flying, maybe oftentimes a curry or a Chinese-style food,. is that umami factor like you say there and those bold flavors. I never really considered it from the drinks, but that makes sense. All right.
ET: That’s the research I was exposed to and it made sense because before I really even loved Bloody Marys, I would drink them on a plane. It’s usually one of the worst Bloody Marys you’ll ever have. The flavors are there and it helps, I guess, satiate whatever that craving is.
The Ingredients in ET’s Bloody Mary
T: I think to your point earlier, if we’re going to define a Bloody Mary here today, it’s been done before, but I think it is not just tomato juice and booze, it’s other ingredients, it’s taking it to the next level, which is why those ones that you’re on about there might not be very good. Whether it is a mix or whether it is just tomato juice. What are your non-negotiables when it comes to ingredients that define the Bloody Mary mix? What has to be in there?
ET: For me, tomato juice. When people try to do other versions, to me it’s red tomato juice for me is a defining factor of a Bloody Mary, but once you have vodka and tomato juice or spirit and tomato juice, what has to be there? Pepper, celery salt, horseradish, Tabasco, Worcestershire all have to be there and some type of citrus, usually lemon juice for me. Once you have that base, I feel like now you can take it wherever you want, but if you don’t have that base, I feel like you’re missing some of the heart of what makes that drink great so I would start there as some non-negotiables.
T: Yes. I think those are solid. Those are all great picks. Talk about the Bloody Mary doing a lot of heavy lifting for tomato juice, but also celery salt. It’s the only time I ever hear it called out.
ET: Yes, and I agree. I don’t think I ever heard of celery salt until Bloody Marys, and that supposedly was that, Pete from St. Regis, that was one of his additions to vodka and tomato juice. It maybe was used back in the day more than we ever used it in modern times, but it stuck in that drink and even after discovering it, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a recipe call for it.
T: Interesting.
ET: Maybe a stew, but I’m guessing more than I can say yes. I have celery salt in the house, but I don’t know that I really use it for anything other than Bloody Marys.
T: Talk about an ingredient that does exactly what it says on the tin too. Celery salt, what does it taste like? Well, funny you should ask. Tastes like celery mixed with salt. It really does work for this drink. Maybe it was the inclusion was to bring that celery profile, because this is pre-mass production of juicers and things like that and you have it as the garnish. Maybe it’s the link there. I guess where I’m going with this is that non-negotiable?
ET: Not really because that garnish was nowhere near the timeline of the invention of the drink and decades later.
T: Oh, really?
ET: Yes. The garnish came a lot later and it’s, again, this guy says I did it, this guy says I did it. Legend has it there. I guess there’s a bar in Chicago called, the guy’s name Butch McGuire, and I think it was a bar called Butch McGuire’s. I guess a customer there got a Bloody Mary, and I guess at Butch’s are back in the day, you always got some type of swizzle stick to stir the drink and I guess the bartender forgot to give this guy, this customer the sizzle stick. He just reached over and I guess there was celery stalk there and put it in his drink to stir the drink. I guess they’re like, oh, great idea. That’s what started celery and that origin story is 100 percent true, except for not far away at the Ambassador Hotel was The Pump Room. Some people would argue that it happened at The Pump Room and then Butch McGuire stole it or copied it or adopted it.
T: It’s crazy.
ET: Yes, but look, both stories say it happened in Chicago and they — the story itself is the same — that someone got a drink without a stir stick and grabbed the celery stalk. Now what’s funny about that — so The Pump Room was a big deal. That was like Chicago’s, I guess, Copacabana or something that was just celebrity driven. Even later, I think Bogie and Bacall had been there, Mick Jagger, Dolly Parton, Eddie Murphy. Of course, probably their most famous guest of note was Sinatra. I can’t claim that he drank a lot of Bloody Marys, but I guarantee he drank a lot of Jack Daniel’s at The Pump Room.
T: Oh, yes.
ET: In that song, “My Kind of Town,” the Chicago song that Sinatra sings, there is a line about The Pump Room in that song.
T: Oh, nice.
ET: It was a big deal. I don’t know, it was just because it was a big deal place doesn’t mean they invented the celery stalk as a garnish.
T: Where are they getting this celery stalk from, by the way, he reaches over. What is this? I’m trying to picture in my mind like it doesn’t feel.
ET: What else would have a celery stalk? Like, what else a celery stalk would be used for behind the bar?
T: Yes. Like it’s not, or if he sat, say for example, he’s at a table, there’s no dish, especially a fancy place where…
ET: No, this was definitely at the bar. I guess you could also argue that whoever that customer was, was basically ground zero for so many bartenders’ bane of existence, which is a customer using the garnish tray as a buffet. I don’t know what else unless the story got a little evolved. Maybe there was celery on his dish. Maybe, I know buffalo wings weren’t invented yet, but maybe whatever he had, celery, things like that.
T: Crudités maybe.
ET: Maybe there was a crudités laying around then he just grabbed a piece of celery and threw it in. Whenever someone puts peanut butter and chocolate together, genius, but it stuck. It definitely did stick.
T: Maybe with sometimes on these, like you get buffets or things where I used to work in hotel restaurants too, where you’d oftentimes use a lot of food for decoration for these buffet plates, like salad as the base but you’re really not expecting anyone to take that and actually when someone does take the salad as the base from a buffet, you’re like, “No, don’t eat that, dude.” Maybe that’s it, I don’t know. It’s an interesting thought. Also, this person had a very tuned palate. They didn’t realize it. They were getting notes of celery salt in their Bloody Mary and they’re like, you know what? This is the one for me. He went past the carrot.
ET: That is a good point. He does this guy, although he used his dirty hands to get other people’s food, he had a very sensitive palate. Very refined palate. The other thing, and again, if we’re going to give the actor George Jessel the credit for tomato juice and vodka, Pete really did a like — so pepper was one of my non-negotiables but he also, pepper was his thing, but he didn’t put ground pepper in his Bloody Mary mix. He actually, which fascinates me thinking about the time period he took peppercorns and infused vodka with pepper until the vodka was like a tincture like bitters almost and he would add drops of this peppercorn-infused vodka as his “peppering agent” because I guess they felt like there was greater flavor extracted than you’d get from just ground pepper.
T: That’s all right, I’m giving the majority of the credit to this guy then instead. We don’t often get forwarded the opportunity to do a deep dive on pepper here on this show. I’m going to put this one out there. What about white pepper versus black pepper here? There’s the aesthetics to think about, but flavor too. They’re different.
ET: Again, I would go back to my original thought of whatever you dig is what you dig. I love white pepper. I think if you ever want an experiment with the infusing pepper, I feel like you could actually, there’s probably a play for this percentage black peppercorn, this percentage red peppercorn, and make a blend for your own mix so it’s your own. I feel like those are all the different ways you create and put your stamp on the drink you’re saying is our house Bloody Mary. Eight different peppers. You know what I mean? Whatever you’re going to do.
T: You bring me a personalized pepper mix and I’m just, again, thinking this is another pandemic project for me right now. Nailing down. What percentage pink do you go in a near mix? I’m at 60 these days, but I could be swayed.
ET: I think if done right, you could really make — if you took a vodka bottle, and then took the label off and filled it like a sweet 16 where they used to put sand in glass jars and make little shapes. You take all the different colored peppercorns. I think then you have a big strong argument for pink because it would look so nice in the jar and then do some layers of black peppercorn and green peppercorn and then fill vodka. I think that would be something, Bart. Patient, what’s that? Oh, that’s our pepper for our house, Bloody Mary.
T: I also only use official appellation peppercorns. I’m not sure if you’ve — I actually have once been to a peppercorn plantation. It was in Cambodia and it was a protected geographical indication or whatever. Pepper, Kampot pepper, if you wanna look into that one. Let me tell you, it’s fascinating. It really is crazy. It’s a wonderful process.
ET: The only part of the process I’m familiar with is buying it in the store.
T: Yes. It’s not something you consider.
ET: Now that you’ve brought it to my attention, now I want to go see how peppercorn is before it goes into the spice rack.
T: Yes, 100 percent, they have a nice little local dish there nearby. They have these little crabs and they cook with green peppercorns. Wonderful. Fantastic. Other non-negotiables that you want to get into a little bit, you mentioned citrus. Are you thinking lemon here? I’m assuming.
ET: Traditionally for me, yes, lemon is the way to go. I think lime juice is maybe in conjunction with lemon juice, but just lime juice wouldn’t be for me, for a Bloody Mary. I like lemon juice. I think it goes really well with tomatoes. If you look at a lot of recipes that call for tomato, I’m sure lemon is a bigger component than lime.
T: Worcestershire sauce, that speaks for itself, we’re bringing tang as well as acidity and maybe a slight sweetness too with that ingredient
ET: For sure. Nowadays too, I think for a very long time there was only one game in town brand-wise. Now I think especially, I didn’t know til a couple of years ago when I was working on the Bloody Mary mix, I didn’t realize that Worcestershire is not vegan because there’s fish oil in it. For really anyone that’s a very strict vegan, or clam, maybe there’s clam juice, there’s something fish- related
T: Anchovies, I believe so.
ET: Oh, maybe you’re right. Maybe it is anchovies, that makes more sense. There are vegan options now also which have a little bit of different flavor and they can bring something else to the table as well but the idea of that has to be in it in some version.
T: Yes, 100 percent. The one player in the game you are talking about Lea & Perrins there?
ET: Yes.
T: I feel like I don’t come across it as much. Yes, that’s the one. Speaking on that vegetarian, vegan, this is not one of your non-negotiables, but how do you feel about adding some broth or stock to this? Maybe reducing it down real hard, is that too much effort? How do you feel about that?
ET: The thing about Bloody Marys, it’s all in the prep. Once you do all those steps, which might be annoying at first, it’s done. For me, the ingredient I’ve always added to my mixes — when I was working on that recipe for Jones in L.A. I realized we had a pretty good Bloody Mary recipe and we would put it in a liter bottle with tomato juice. Like I said, we weren’t open for brunch. Depending on what run we had on Bloody Marys, we could either have to remake it by Thursday or throw most of it away by Saturday because it just sat there and went bad. What I started doing in that recipe trying to figure it out, I started adding olive juice, right? Dirty Sue came out and I started adding olive juice to the mix which really added a nice umami flavor. What I realized when I looked at the recipe, it was mostly liquid. You had a decent amount of Tabasco, a decent amount of Worcestershire, a decent amount of Dirty Sue. I just added all those spices into a Mason jar with all that liquid and stopped pre-making the actual mix. The spice mix lived on its own, and then we just had little six-ounce cans of tomato juice. At worst, if we only sold one Bloody Mary that day, the very worst we did was waste a couple of ounces of tomato juice versus maybe three-quarters of a liter of the whole mix. That one ingredient I realized a lot of other bartenders were using as well. Olive juice does a really nice thing to Bloody Mary mixes. The long answer to your question, I think a broth, if you look at the Bloody Bull, they use beef bouillon cubes so I don’t think anything really is off the table when it comes to — now, I have and I’m sure you have had many bad Bloody Marys, so there are versions that just don’t work. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have tried it. You should have just realized before it went on your menu that nobody likes it. I’m saying go for anything and see if it works. I’m down. I think broth makes a lot of sense, so I don’t think a veggie broth would make much of a difference. They’re pretty light. A beef broth, chicken broth, I think would have some real added value.
T: Nice. I’m going to come back to you with another ingredient question shortly, but you mentioned something there that I think is very fascinating for this show from a more professional lens rather than at home bartender, which is the mix itself, shelf life. We can accurately assume that most Bloody Marys are being sold on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
ET: I would say, yes.
T: When is the ideal time and again, if you’re going to sell a lot of these, when are you doing this prep? Is this a Friday afternoon thing or do you have enough time on Friday? You probably had a busy night on Thursday. Friday’s going to be a big one, too, but if you leave that to Saturday morning A) you might have been working late the night before and B), a lot of effort goes into this. When is the sweet spot? I know the answer is probably it depends on the location, it’s case by case, but hypothetically speaking.
ET: I think these days with how bars are run, on a busy brunch weekend, they’re going to try to do it day of. Yes, it’s effort but like we just mentioned, a lot of that effort is the prep. If you are going to make an ingredient like Pete’s pepper tincture, that was made weeks ago. That’s sitting with the peppercorn in the vodka bottle so that they’re not making that Saturday morning. Let’s say we were going to do our house-made bone broth, you’re going to have the chef make that, keep it in the walk-in for you. When it comes time to Saturday morning and you’re setting up, you should have in your bar book a very easy-to-follow guide that could take under 10 minutes to make your batch for the whole day. I don’t think it’s too much to ask. I think that would be someone’s side work, probably the bar back once it’s been created. Now we’ve all been to a bar where they pull that plastic storm pour out of the beer cooler and shake it, look at it, and smell it. You’re like, “I’m not sure I want to drink that.” Usually, at those places, they’re using a bot mix and those are pasteurized. You’re going to get a good shelf life out of them. I don’t think at blah blah corner bar, they’re scratch-making you your Bloody Mary in their house mix. I think if anything extravagant, they’re taking a pretty neutral mix and maybe adding a few spices a la minute when they make it. I don’t think you have to worry about them having a Bloody Mary mix sitting in the cooler for six weeks and then trying to serve it to you.
T: I guess what, Saturday morning, make sure you make enough for at least today and a little bit tomorrow. That’ll be fine. Then we’ll revisit Sunday morning and we’ll try and dial it in a little bit more in terms of trying to avoid wastage.
ET: I would be pretty sure they’re going to keep it overnight. I don’t think there’s going to be any risk in that, but well-run places usually can have a pretty good estimate after they’re open for a little while of what we’re going to go through, you start taking averages of how many of this, how many of this, how many of this. Then you make it and you make a little bit extra just in case. Especially if it’s Saturday you can use it Sunday. Sunday you might be a little bit more cautious about over-making. Look, sometimes stuff gets 86’d or someone’s got to very quickly make a new batch and hopefully, they’re not making the same amount for Sunday the second round because now they’re going to — that Monday morning special is now Bloody Marys, bottomless Bloody Marys.
T: Yes. That’s like the rehashed Sunday roast that comes into a new dish on Monday morning. That used to be a great Monday morning special we’d do. One thing I will say that I did never appreciate was 10 minutes before brunch service kicks off, I got a bartender running around my kitchen questioning why we haven’t done the dry store order for celery salt. I’m like, you need to think about this on Friday night, dude. Do not be doing this in the kitchen on Saturday morning, have some foresight, but make the dried mix, like you say, batch the things that can be batched and just keep on top of that.
ET: That dried mix will last. That’s all sodium and things that are completely fortified that you’re going, you could batch days in advance, weeks in advance, maybe. You will lose a little bit of spice on that horseradish over time, but a couple of days it’s not going to be bothered. Horseradish too is another thing. There’s horseradish sauce and then there’s prepared horseradish and I’m of the prepared horseradish. It’s not quite shaved horseradish. I don’t think that flavor’s quite there.
T: No. The creamy horseradish isn’t where it’s at either.
ET: No. It’s that middle ground, like what you get when you get oysters. That horseradish.
T: No, that’s a great point, actually. Definitely worth noting that. Coming back to those ingredients too, I mentioned I had another one for you. You know the conversation where you’re like, “Here, try my Bloody Mary mix? The secret is I include this.” Do you have any wild cards or any, not secret, but like a calling card that makes it your Bloody Mary mix apart from, I’m assuming just being very high quality. Do you have one of those cards that you pull out there?
ET: Yes. It’s evolved. My secret ingredient for a while was olive juice until I realized a lot of bartenders used olive juice. My other secret ingredient is celery salt. I also use seasoned salt, which is another salt I use, which I think has a lot of great flavor for a Bloody Mary. I would say my secret secret and this is only a secret if you’ve A) never been to New Orleans or B) never paid attention to your Bloody Mary in New Orleans. I go to Jazz Fest every year with guys I grew up with and we’re looking at 25 years we’ve been going to New Orleans. I’ve also been to Tales of the Cocktail 15 times. I got married in New Orleans. I’ve been there a lot and I’ve imbibed many a Bloody Mary while there. In my mind I’m like, New Orleans has great Bloody Marys, but that’s all I would say for a while. Then one time I noticed this bar had an infusion jar and it was olives, cocktail onions, pickled green beans, and other pickled goodness and that’s where their vodka would live. You’re pulling all this flavor from these pickled vegetables. Once I noticed it in one bar, I realized it was almost in every bar in New Orleans. The first thing I did when I got back to L.A. was started doing that at Jones.
T: Yes.
ET: One, it’s amazing vodka for a Bloody Mary. Two, it’s an amazing Dirty Martini. It was great and that really became like that one thing, because not a lot of people in L.A. were doing that, if anyone, and that became one of our signature ingredients. Now, what really made that difficult, years later, when I was finally like, I’m going to bottle my mix. I’m going to bottle what everyone’s saying, “This Bloody Mary’s so good, you should bottle it.” I used all the ingredients like it’s not quite as good as the one at the bar and then I realized all that flavor from the infusion jar I need to figure out how to reverse-engineer that and get it into my mix because I can’t put it on the recipe. Also for 36 hours before serving, infuse three gallons of vodka in a jar with these vegetables. That took the better part of a year and a lot of trips to spice stores trying to figure out because I was using pickled green beans, the classic Dirty Sue, olives, the pimento olives, onions but I was also using sun-dried tomatoes, and some lemon wheels. It was a lot to try to figure out because most people don’t put… when you go look at pickled green beans, it says string beans, vinegar, water, salt, blah, blah, blah acid, and natural spices. They don’t tell you everything that’s in there so you can go to the store and go buy. It’s a lot of tasting that stuff and I think there’s this, I think there’s that, but that’s a fun something that we did that you weren’t finding in L.A., at least at other bars. That made it a fun ingredient to have. People are, what is that? I see this giant jar of pickled goodness. Everybody wants to know what it was.
T: That’s amazing. I’ve had that exact same or a very similar experience actually. That was to be the one that I would say for myself too as well, some form of pickling liquor component to this drink I think just really makes it pop in an amazing way. A couple of years ago I was helping out a friend of mine who has a food truck in London called Le Swine. They make elevated bacon butties. They’re incredible. Check them out if you’re there if you’re not familiar with them. We were doing a collaboration with Sipsmith on a little Bloody Mary because it was for music festivals and so Sipsmith had their tents but that was for later in the day. We had the breakfast thing going on and I was tasked with a couple of days before one of the festivals we went to batching this massive mix and backpack and everything. It turned out that it was cheaper, more cost-effective to buy massive jars and tins of pickles because we wanted exactly the right flavor and just use the juice from that than it was to try and A) recreate that, or B) buy high-quality pickling liquor. Maybe it’s a U.K. versus American thing but it really just wasn’t possible then. A weird thing about this, too, I know this is rambling on a little here but the weird thing was I went back to do all this batching at a kitchen that I’d previously worked in and it was their last day as a restaurant. They were trying very hard to clear everything out of their freezers and fridges and you had the people in there taking stock. The accountants are in there doing all this and there I am just taking, must have been 50-plus backpack bags of massive gherkins that we weren’t going to use. I said to my friend who ran the business, I’m like, what are we doing with these? He’s like we’re leaving these here and we’re running. The chef was pissed off. We got an angry phone call, we left that behind not sure whatever happened but long story short pickles are the way to go.
ET: Pickles are great. Anything. Using pepperoncini juice from those jars. Any kind of brine, like I said, olive juice, pickle juice, all that kind of stuff is great. It really is the drink that can withstand almost everything you can put in and people try. You look at some of these garnishes and I think a lot of it is, they want it to be walked through the restaurant. They want one table to order that crazy Bloody Mary with three cheeseburgers and a piece of fried chicken as a garnish and then what is that? Oh, that’s our Bloody Mary and then in the menu, you see you can also get it with not all that and they end up, I’m sure, sell a lot more like that but it’s one of those good advertising.
T: It’s a head-turner, isn’t it?
ET: For sure. It’s a lot of fun for Instagram, I don’t know how. If I wanted a cheeseburger, I feel like I’m going to order a cheeseburger. I don’t need to order the Bloody Mary to get the cheeseburger. They are good Instagrammable moments, for sure.
T: Yes, it’s brilliant social media fodder. Do you want to talk about how we get to that point? Do you know anything of how we get to that point beyond social media? Or do you want to just dive into what you think, again, are non-negotiables when it comes to garnish, but also, anything you might add that’s not also not common?
ET: I am a little old school, I too like to sell restock, and mostly because, here’s a non-negotiable, it’s not an ingredient, but it should be considered an ingredient. I’ve had too many Bloody Marys where someone tastes a glass, fills it with ice, throws in vodka, and then pours the Bloody Mary mix on top, and serves it to me like that. If you don’t roll shake, meaning, if you don’t take that class, pour it into another empty glass and then pour it back, you’re doing everyone such a disservice because otherwise, tomato juice is obviously so thick. It’s sitting on top of the vodka, and it’s never mixing. That’s why that guy grabbed that celery stalk because he didn’t have something to mix with. I like having the celery stalk in case a bartender didn’t do me a solid and mix it for me, and I like it. I like the crunch. I do like getting a lemon wedge, just so I know I can add that extra citrus if I want. I don’t mind a couple of olives, but once you get past the basics, I don’t think you can go wrong with some bacon. I think bacon is a fun one to have. I’ve had some shrimp cocktail or some shrimp on a skewer. I’ll dig that. Again, I don’t need it to be a meal like I said, cheeseburger, fried chicken, something crazy like that, or corndog, but I don’t mind some of the elevated basics like bacon or some shrimp. That’s always fun. I also love, love, love pickled green beans. If you throw a couple of them in there, I’m your very loyal customer.
T: Some kind of pickle, yes, for sure. Kind of calling out each of the ingredients that are in there with the garnish and whatnot. We keep speaking about vodka, just wondering, are there any other base spirits that you would consider for this? Or you would urge people to try that they maybe haven’t tried before?
ET: Yes. Look, you know what’s funny? At St. Regis, when Pete’s Bloody Mary was there, it was called and this is for more than one source, the Red Snapper. Before it was called the Bloody Mary, but what’s funny, and now is still a vodka drink. Today, the Red Snapper is the gin version of a Bloody Mary. It’s odd that it switched, it jumped camps, and I find that’s fine too because gin’s a neutral grain spirit, with a lot of other flavors added to it, so it makes sense it’s going to work in a Bloody Mary. You have a Bloody Maria, tequila, and mezcal. I don’t know that that’s my favorite. I guess it depends on the tequila, how much overpowering it may or may not do to the drink. One thing I’ve tried recently, which the server was definitely eyebrow up, whiskey is so popular right now. I wanted to try a whiskey Bloody Mary. I ordered Jack Daniel’s, but I asked the bartender put a bar spoon of honey syrup in it, and it was so good. It was really like the whiskey with a little bit of the smoke and some of those oak flavors that come through in whiskey and then a touch of honey syrup to counter the spice. It was really delicious. He even gave a thumbs-up. I think he took a straw test before he put it out in the world, the bartender, to see what we were doing over there, but that was really fun. I don’t think something is on people’s minds when they’re ordering a Bloody Mary. You have Michelada, instead of vodka using beer, and that goes a couple of ways. Similar to some of those Micheladas don’t have tomato juice, some do. I guess it depends on the bartender or your personal taste when you’re making it at home. It’d be beer with just the spices and seasonings and some lime juice. Then some have tomato juice, basically a Bloody Mary mix with beer. That can go either way. I’m trying to think. Oh, I saw it once in L.A. I don’t know if it ever caught on. I think it’s called Bloodless, which would seem like a Virgin Mary. I think what they were using instead of tomato juice, they were using tomato water. Basically taking tomatoes, pureeing them, and then using like a cheesecloth, I guess, to strain out all the solids. That almost seems like it might work better in a savory Martini than what we’re looking for in the morning.
T: I’m not sure I’m here for that version to be completely honest with you.
ET: I’ve heard of it. I can’t say I tried it. Then of course we talked about it much earlier. The Bloody Caesar with the clam juice or Clamato.
T: I’ll throw one final spirit in the hat there for folks. I would go unaged here, but Aquavit too, kind of in that gin realm. Botanicals, savory. Try it out, guys. I’m a big fan.
ET: I dig it.
How to Make ET’s Bloody Mary
T: Also, another weird one, wild card. I’m not sure why you would do this. I was writing an article years ago, the Alternatives to Vodka in Your Bloody Mary. I whipped up a batch and we basically tried everything off the shelf just basically to see if it worked. Cognac. I don’t know why you would, but I can confirm that it works. Maybe just try it once to give that a go but it actually does work as an ingredient. Anyway, moving swiftly on from that heresy. Can you now talk us through the preparation here, including specs for what you would feel would be the ideal, the perfect Bloody Mary? You mentioned the roll shake there. Can you talk us through this as if you’re making that drink for us today?
ET: What I’ll do is I’ll give you the basic spice mix I used to make it at Jones. This, you would put in a Mason jar and you could keep this in your fridge. That way if you invited me over for a football game tomorrow, we can make two or three, but you can keep this spice mix in your fridge for weeks if not longer. Then this is also to me a good base for if you want to go crazier, spicy, or add some more crazy things, go ahead. This is a very solid base. This obviously does not include the infused vodka that we were using, but it’s a nice base for a Bloody Mary. In that said Mason jar or some type of glass. Six ounces Dirty Sue, premium olive juice, four flat teaspoons of black pepper. By flat, you just take your teaspoon and then take a flat service and go over the spoon. It’s not like there’s no top on it. You’re only getting the actual teaspoon. Three flat teaspoons of celery salt, three flat teaspoons of Lowes seasoned salt, six flat teaspoons of horseradish. I use usually a hot horseradish. Brands, this varies from state to state to state, but definitely use a prepared horseradish, not the creamy sauce. Three ounces of Worcestershire sauce, ounce and a half of Tabasco. The great thing about this, you got in the Mason jar, obviously, shake it every time you’re going to make a drink. This will settle and all of the dry ingredients will settle and if you pour, you’re going to miss a lot of the fun. Definitely shake. I would use a half-ounce of this spice mix in a glass, fill it with ice, and then about three to three and a half ounces of tomato juice, and 100 percent use squeezed lemon. I don’t put it in the mix because I feel like it just won’t last. Definitely you want a squeeze of lemon in this mix before you do your roll shake, where you’re going to take this drink with the ice, with all the ingredients, the vodka, ounce and half of vodka. Half-ounce of your spice mix, ounce and a half of vodka, three to three and a half ounces of tomato juice, and then pour that into a pint glass and then pour it back into your Collins glass. Then garnish however you see fit.
T: Go wherever you want with that one. It’s like a dirty dump whatever you’re doing, you’re including the ice that you use to chill it as the ice for the drink?
ET: Yes. I’m going to put it all in there because some of this stuff will stick to that ice and I don’t want to lose it.
T: Got it. I want my Bloody Marys chilled but without ice.
ET: Interesting.
T: I worry about the dilution because it takes a while as we spoke about to drink this.
ET: That is a very good point. You don’t want to shake a Bloody Mary.
T: No.
ET: Unless you’re starting with very, very cold vodka and very, very cold tomato juice and the spice mix will live in the fridge, I guess you could do it. I also like a little bit of dilution, so if I was going to do your method, I feel like I might want to add a bit of dilution if I was only going to serve this with no ice.
T: I’m talking purely hypothetically here. I don’t think I’ve ever tried this, but every time when I get a bit too much dilution, it does annoy me.
ET: Again, you’re also dealing with the problem of sometimes they serve these giant Bloody Marys that no human could drink before it’s diluted. I was thinking about that, about glassware. What’s the right glassware for Bloody Mary? The one I just told you, you’re going to use a normal Collins glass. The big negative with that Collins glass is when you start stuffing in the olives, the lemon, the pickle, green beans, celery, where are you sipping it from? There’s no real estate left for your lips. That is where a pint glass, although I’m not a big fan of pint-glass drinks. I would even say some type of goblet or even a wine glass where you have a wider opening would be a great way to be able to fit all the fun stuff in there and use it to also drink from.
T: I think that’s a great point too. Also just because we’re so used to seeing these massive Bloody Marys these days, I don’t know whether some people might feel a little shortchanged if it arrives in a Collins. Who knows.
ET: I guess if the one in the Collins class was $18.99, you might feel short-changed.
T: For sure.
ET: You know what I mean?
T: Then again you have got some pan-seared foie gras as a garnish.
ET: True. That is true.
T: Any final thoughts on the Bloody Mary before we head into the next section of the show?
ET: I would say this. If you’ve really never tried to conquer this at home, I would say start with something that sounds very palatable like the recipe I just gave you, or a version of that where it’s tomato juice and a handful of classic spices, start there. Try it and say, what else do I want? First of all, you can’t take anything out. Once you put in a little smidge of juice from an oyster or brine from an oyster, or whatever it is, if you don’t like it, you can’t get rid of it. I would say start with the basics. Then one by one add things, and that way you’ll know exactly what it was you loved and didn’t love. As you experiment with your friends, hopefully over a couple of Sundays, you can really perfect that home recipe. Start with the classics and then add one by one until you figure out exactly what is your perfect Bloody Mary.
T: Perfect. I think that’s great advice right there. Speaks to everything that we’ve covered really, the Bloody Marys, the ultimate customizable cocktail. It allows you to-
ET: It is a very personal drink
Getting to Know Eric “ET” Tecosky
T: Allows you to go through all these different rabbit holes. I am looking forward to next weekend already, I’m going to get one of these. I am getting the pickling jar going with the vodka and the spices. That is a project I can get behind but let’s do it. Let’s move into the final section of the show here, ET, where people get to know you more as a drinker and a bartender.
ET: Perfect.
T: We’ll kick it off with question number one. What style or category of spirit typically enjoys the most real estate on your back bar?
ET: I would say whiskey would be number one. Only because, one, it’s awesome but there’s so many different styles of whiskey that you need a lot of real estate for the whiskeys. There’s whiskeys from so many different regions that you want to give attention to. Even within those regions, there’s so many great whiskeys that it’s hard to only, you can’t have one bourbon, you can’t have one Scotch. I feel like you got to really start exploring the categories and that’s going to take up some real estate. Then I think, probably, if I was going to give you a number two, it would be tequila. One, because there’s a lot of great tequila on the market; two, because it’s immensely popular, and three, because it really does vary a lot. It’s fun to have different types of tequila to showcase.
T: 100 percent. Four, because if you didn’t add that tequila on in the end there, people might kick you out of L.A.
ET: That’s true. That’s a very good point.
T: You will be like, No, it’s all right. I got mezcal, sorry, buddy. I think that a wealth of possibilities in both those categories, popular ones, for sure. Question number two, which ingredient or tool is the most undervalued in a bartender’s arsenal?
ET: That’s an easy one, personality. Look, I can train my mother how to bartend and make the perfect drink but you can’t train personality. Not that my mother wouldn’t be great personality-wise. When I’m hiring a bartender, very rarely does their resume make me hire them. It’s their personality because you’re dealing with the public coming into your bar and expecting a level of service. If you have a bartender who makes the greatest drink in the world but just isn’t great with people, your bar is not going to do well. As a customer, if I go into a bar and have a solid cocktail and an amazing bartender, I will go back there 9 times out of 10 versus having the greatest well-made cocktail, whatever cocktail, Bloody Mary ordered and the best version of that drink I’ve ever had in my life and the worst bartender that made me feel like I don’t deserve to be there. I’ll never go back for that drink but I will go back for that bartender made who me a solid cocktail that just was great to talk to and really just brighten up my day.
T: 100 percent.
ET: You really can’t teach personality, you can’t teach it. Either you can make it a little better but they have to come in with it.
T: It’s so important. It really is. By extension, I think it’s like service, bad service. I don’t care the quality of everything else. I’m never going back.
ET: Some of it is trained like, this is how we do it at this restaurant but some servers or bartenders adopted it very easily because part of it’s their nature. They want to make you have a better time now that you’re here than you would have somewhere else or at home. Some people go through the motions and you can just tell that they don’t really care if you’re there or not. They’re just waiting for you to add a 20 percent tip and leave.
T: Question number three, what’s the most important piece of advice you’ve received while working in this industry?
ET: I guess it’s the riff on the old adage of the customer’s always right, this advice was the customer is almost always right. I think the person that said that advice, didn’t deliver it the way I interpreted it. I think they were saying to some customers, that’s nonsense but to me, I do take it to heart. The part about the customer always being right to me means if somebody comes into my bar and they chose my bar to get their drink for whatever reason, whether they’re celebrating something, they had a bad day, someone just broke up with them, whatever it is, they chose my bar to spend their hard-earned money to get something from me. They deserve a hundred percent of whatever I can give to give them. That’s my responsibility to that customer. In that sense, they are right. They do deserve it because they chose it and they could have taken their money and their needs anywhere they wanted to go, but they chose my bar, so I have a responsibility. Now the almost always right part, there’s not awesome people in this world. I do feel like as bartenders and servers and people in this industry, we have a responsibility to the world to offer some education, as subtle as it may be to these people. I don’t really like to get into arguments with guests or tell them that they’re awful people unless it’s, and it’s very rare but warranted. There are things devised over the years to hint at maybe they should be nicer. This is not great, but I’ll tell you because it’s fun. I’ve bartended with this guy Dalton for years, and he’s a great guy, great personality, great bartender, and we’re both of the same mentality of let’s do our best to make our customers happy and make them want to come back and tell people how awesome this bar is. Then when you have that really not awesome person, what do you do? Right? My dogs agree. We devised this system called Bus Tubbing, it started with this one guy one night. We had this guy, he was on a date and I guess in order to make himself look better to his date, he decided to make us not be awesome. He had power over us so he must be powerful. This is a snappy-fingers kind of guy. Knocking on the bar, pointing to his drink when you’re helping another customer, snapping in your face, or tugging on your shirt while you’re taking someone else’s order. We decided that we were not going to clean up any of his dirty dishes from food or any of his empty drink glasses or wipe up the bar in front of him. Now we did it for his date. It was spotless in front of her and she had a fresh coaster and cocktail and her food that she finished hours ago was gone and we just piled up to where we would have to move his dirty things out of the way to give him his new drink. It really felt great until like four days later, the GM called us into the office. I guess that happened to be the night that there was a secret shopper in the bar.
T: No.
ET: Yes. Someone that might not know that that’s the company that we hire to secretly come into a bar and watch certain employees and just report back how they do, so we can all learn from what we do and do better. He’s like, “All right I got your shoppers report.” At first, I was like, “Great.” You’re like, yes, it’s mostly really good, blah, blah, blah. “Here are some of the highlights, you did this great, you did that great. They had a really good energy between them. The one thing that was odd there was one customer at the bar that they never cleaned up in front of. They kept a very tidy bar except for this one guest where they never cleaned up in front of him.” We were like, “Do we tell him?” It was such a good report. We’re like, “Yes, sorry, we’ll do better.” What we’re going to tell, “Oh no, we Bus Tubbed that guy, we did it on purpose.”
T: Bus Tubbed. I love it.
ET: Anyway. The best advice is probably the customer’s almost always right. Meaning do your best to make everyone happy. Once in a while they’re not going to be awesome and do your best in that situation unless you have to do drastic measures.
T: You never know when the secret shopper is coming in.
ET: Murphy’s Law, right?
T: Wonderful. All right. A penultimate question here, number four. If you could only visit one last bar in your life, what would it be?
ET: It would be Jones. That has been a part of my life probably since it opened in ’94. Prior to working there, I was a regular for years, so many good things came to me from Jones, work opportunities, lifelong friends whether they started out as customers and became lifelong friends or co-workers that so many of them were at my wedding. The cherry on top, or the most important thing that happened while at Jones was I met my wife there so I don’t think if I had the opportunity there would be no other bar I would go to than Jones.
T: Amazing. I went there for the first time earlier this year. I’ve only been to L.A. a handful of times and I was there early this year. Phenomenal. What a Martini, by the way. I think I had a couple.
ET: They nail it on so many levels, the vibe, the music, the atmosphere, just the energy. Even with the pandemic, it’s the same chef since day one. It’s the same general manager since day one. Some of the bartenders have been there over a decade. Same with some of the servers, obviously they’re there because it’s still a good job but also they’re there because they love working there. You don’t really see that often in that industry.
T: Great place. I was staying around the corner on North La Brea. I walked to this restaurant I’m like, “What are people on about L.A.? You have to drive everywhere. This is perfectly walkable, this city.”
ET: If you stay in three different hotels other than that you’re in an Uber.
T: All right, final question for us today. If you knew that the next cocktail you drank was going to be your last, what would you order or make?
ET: I think whatever it was it’d be a double.
T: I’m with you on that.
ET: I want the most I could get, so many factors. I’m just going to say this. If it was the morning it would be a Bloody Mary. If it was like a pre-last meal drink, this is my last meal. I would probably have a Dirty Martini. If we just, hey have a drink. This is it, you can only call out a drink, it would definitely be Jack neat and if my last drink was on a beach somewhere it’d be a Piña Colada.
T: I like that. Options but situations represented there.
ET: Yes. It’s tough because most of the time I drink the same things but there are moments in your life where you’re like oh, I’m here, I’m getting this. That would be a double, so I can milk it.
T: Amazing. ET, thanks so much for joining us today. I can’t wait to get started on some of these projects. This is dangerous but it’s been a blessing. Thank you so much.
ET: Thank you, and you inspired me as well. I think I’m going to work on this peppercorn tincture as well so we can keep in touch about that.
T: Hey, hit us up. Get back in touch when you know your preferred blend there, your little, your mash bill on your peppercorns there.
ET: Perfect. I will do.
T: Thank you very much, cheers.
ET: All right, take care.
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