No, it’s not the name of a cool Alt-Punk band. It’s my next post, composed half-soberly after a lazy attempt to find the best bloody mary cocktail in BKK. It’s been a short, strange trip.
I didn’t discover this drink until well into middle age when I randomly ordered one with breakfast right here in Thailand. And damn if it wasn’t an interesting way to inject vodka into one’s breakfast. However, most of the ones I tried didn’t pack the kind of flavor wallop I was promised by all the films and TV shows where the characters drank one—I said “most.” Of course, every place I tried was strategically located near one of Bangkok’s three red-light districts. I haven’t ranked them. Rather, they’re grouped according to proximity to the gogo bars. Here’s how it shook out…
Cowboy Adjacent
I started out at a restaurant where I probably should have ended, given that they put on a “build your own bloody mary” brunch on Sundays, but that’s life. My first BM was at Hemingway’s on Suk Soi 11, and it was magical. Spicy and fruity, as if they were trying to capture the essence of Thai food in a cocktail. The garnish accoutrements (garnutrements for short, copyright BKK7) were extensive: celery, two green olives, gherkin, tiny onion all sprinkled with salt and pepper. It accompanied their full breakfast and the two together sated my hunger and thirst completely. 260++ baht.
Next, I tried one with breakfast at Oasis on Soi Cowboy, and like Hemingway’s I paired it with a big breakfast. They stuck a ton of lime in theirs, creating a surprisingly refreshing combination of spicy and sour. It also got me drunk. It wasn’t overtly memorable—it was just…enough. I’d put it in the middle of the BM pack of the ones I sampled, though the price was less painful at 225 baht.
Across from Cowboy at Scruffy Murphy’s I put the bartender to the test by ordering a BM. He was an aging, tiny Thai man and when I asked him if he could make me one, he gave a short, curt nod. There were no frills at all. Just a celery sprig and a fiercely spicy and tomatoey flavor, like a red flaming punch in the mouth. 240 baht.
A short walk from Soi Cowboy is The Clubhouse, and my order caused a bit of a stir. Nobody knew how to make one, so three bar staff huddled round one mobile phone where they Googled the ingredients and then slapped one together, Dr. Frankenstein-style. After 10 tense minutes it showed up—a red liquid over ice—and it was…OK. Heavy on the pepper. After a couple sips, the bartender came over to check it was OK. I wouldn’t order it there again, and in fact they’ve a list of signature cocktails, all of which I’m sure are fantastic. The BM was 230 baht.
Nana Plaza Adjacent
Then I hit The Game, and the experience was quite similar to The Clubhouse. It was then that I realized a British/Irish style pub/sports bar is not the place to order this quintessential breakfast booze beverage. The kind of basic-bitch BM these joints turn out can, I suppose, be a comfort. Like a sturdy chair for those aging punters who want a no-frills refresher. But this old monger needs something more. Life akin to a roller coaster. As for The Game’s, I wasn’t even sure they put vodka in it. To make things worse, whilst I was trying to have a quiet morning and rate a BM, I was accosted by a drunk Russian who demanded to know how much I paid for my baseball cap, and why I’d spend $20 on a hat from America when I could buy one right outside The Game for 100 baht. I tried to explain that it came from my favorite California central coast winery but he shushed me. That’s when I paid and left, abandoning a half-full bloody mary. Imagine my surprise at seeing the Russian hawking baseball caps. 250++ for a BM at The Game.
Just across from there is The Landmark Hotel and their streetside Sukhumvit patio seating. This place is pricey and seems up its own ass with conceit, and so do its customers. So I figured they have to make a good bloody mary, right? Wrong. ‘Twas a miserable experience from soup to nuts. First, it was 340++ fucking baht. And when it showed up to my table, imagine my surprise at finding no ice in it! And it was as thick as tomato soup. It might’ve actually been, for all I knew. And in the balmy Bangkok heat, it didn’t slake the thirst. The only garnish was a wedge of lime, and it was very spicy, with way too much horseradish. The only plus side was, it was packed with vodka and got me drucking funk, I tell you what.
After that, I tried out Hooters’ BM (349++ baht). The waitress said it would take 20 minutes to make, since it would be topped with a strip of freshly-fried bacon. In fact, the cocktail itself was the liquid version of a Hooter’s girl. Bright, buxom, bawdy, bacon-basted, with bits of jalapeno blended in for good measure. “You want it spicy or medium?” the gal inquired. “Spicy,” was my reply. But it wasn’t spicy. Just like a Hooter’s girl, all promise and no follow-through. It looked flashy enough, what with an olive, lime, celery stick, and the aforementioned bacon, plus cayenne pepper around the rim. It had few characteristics I’d come to expect from a BM, but in truth, I was sad when the glass was empty. What’s more, ‘twas 50% off as I happened to be there between 2 and 4 pm.
As I’d not yet learned my lesson about pubs and BM’s, I also tried O’Malley’s on Silom Road. Again, paired it with a big Irish breakfast, and it did what other generic versions do—it satisfied my thirst, served as hair of the dog, and helped wash down the black pudding. (199 baht)
Because I’m in Shenanigan’s several times per week, I felt obligated to add them to this odyssey despite knowing by then that PDMGBM (pubs don’t make good bloody marys). Like the girls at The Clubhouse, the bartender and her friend had to Google the ingredients and follow an internet recipe to make one. Having said that, they made sure to include Worcestershire, and tabasco, and salt & pepper, with a celery garnish. Another bare-bones BM, but what else should I expect? Nada, compadre. It hit a double down the middle, to use a baseball term. Not bad, not great. Just…..down the middle. And a letdown considering the price—250.
Of all the bloody marys I subjected myself to, the one Roadhouse on Surawong stood head and shoulders above the crowd. ‘Twas the only one that achieved a perfect balance of ingredients. With each spellbinding sip, the contents competed with one another for domination without victory until the rhapsody was too great and I had to take another gulp. And every time it threatened to taste tomatoey, a different flavor would sweep across my palate like a broom. And after 10 tries, I finally learned what makes a good bloody mary, and that’s balance. No one flavor should stand out over the others, especially not the tomato juice. And The Roadhouse achieved this balance. What’s more, it was a “smoked” bloody mary, which I had to Google to understand. It turns out, a smoked BM has many incarnations. To get the smoky flavor, one might sub mescal for vodka, or throw in a stick of smoked bacon, or even soke the tomatoes before juicing. I don’t actually know which method the Roadhouse used but the end result was a glass of pure ruby-colored ecstasy. A proponent of string theory would say this BM existed in perfect harmony with the universe, forming a convergence of time, space, and vodka. It refracted my soul like a prism. Not a bad trip for the price (195+)
And that’s 10 BM’s in BKK everyone. Roadhouse wins, with Hooter’s and Hemingway’s tied for 2nd. Though after all that, none of them came close to the one I had last March in the lobby of the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. I was there to see the Killers in concert, and the following afternoon when I woke up, I stumbled downstairs to an empty bar, and the nonplussed but polite young bartender casually turned out a positively epic bloody mary. And so like my failed NachOdyssey, the search for something authentically Western in this Asian paradise ends in anticlimax. But I do this work so you don’t have to, friend. Keep calm and carry on.
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See you next time.
I really loved this post, great writing. It has some atmosphere and imagination. I will try a few of these places. My first day in Thailand, I stayed at a nice hotel in Sathorn, and I think it was like 2 for 1 cocktails and a designer pool-side lounge and I had these tropical fruit hard liquor drinks with chili salt and pineapple wedge or something. but they were done in a mixologist complexity kind of way, am still remembering it.