5 Crazy Bloody Marys to Cure Your Horrible Hangover

When it comes to choosing a mass-market tomato juice for bloodies, it's basically either V-8 or Clamato. You can like both, of course, but you should really pick a side.

I've always preferred V-8's salty viscosity over Clamato's more quaffable lightness, though both make a fine bloody in a pinch. V-8 is kind of like the A-1 steak sauce of supermarket-stocked vegetable drinks; even if it's not the best mary mixer out there, it's still pretty damn good.

V-8 has seized upon its alpha juice status by launching a website called the Bloody Mary Society, which assembles bloodies inspired by cities around the country. Most are considerably more labor-intensive than merely adding a shot of vodka to your V-8 on ice and augmenting with worcestershire, black pepper and/or horseradish.

That'll do just fine, but these five freaky bloodies are for adventurous types who want to kick it up a notch.

Beers with Cleopatra?

What kind of beer did the Pharaohs drink? 

In ancient times, beer was an important ingredient in people's daily diet. Great powers were attributed to beer in the ancient world, particularly for religious worship and healing properties. The pottery used to produce beer in antiquity served as the basis for this new research. The research was led by Dr. Ronen Hazan and Dr. Michael Klutstein, microbiologists from the School of Dental Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI). They examined the colonies of yeast that formed and settled in the pottery's nano-pores. Ultimately, they were able to resurrect this yeast to create a high-quality beer...that's approximately 5,000 years old.

Many cooks were invited into this'beer kitchen to isolate the yeast specimens from the ancient debris and to create a beer with it. First the scientists reached out to vintners at Kadma Winery. This winery still produces wine in clay vessels, proving that yeast may be safely removed from pottery, even if it had lain dormant in the sun for years.

Make Time for 3 Authentic Italian Liqueurs and Spirits

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No one understands the intersection of drinking and culture quite like the Italians do. From morning to night, there’s a drink for every moment. Go ahead: Drink Italian. It’s a way of life.

There’s a lot to admire about Italian cocktail culture, but a big part of what makes Italian drinking so rich is its specificity. It’s not just that every liqueur and spirit is made with a unique set of ingredients and its own distilling process. Each one is also best experienced in specific ways and different times.

Getting to know how and when experts enjoy different brands will tell you far more about them than any flavor description. You don’t need any Italian citizens in your contact list to get this info, because three brand ambassadors have opened up about their ideal experience with some of their favorite Italian originals.

Beer, Not Bread, was Man’s Motivation for Cultivating Cereals

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Archaeologists working in Israel recently uncovered 13,000-year-old evidence of ancient beer. The discovery predates the previously-accepted origin of brewing by around six thousand years, and supports a 60-year-old hypothesis that mankind may have domesticated cereals for beer production, not bread.

The research team, led by Stanford University professor of Chinese archaeology Li Liu, uncovered brewing tools used by the ancient Natufian people at a graveyard site near Haifa, Stanford News reports. The tools, including stone mortars, contained evidence of beer brewing in collected residue samples.

What Is Chinola? And Why It’s Everywhere All of a Sudden?

Americans have a newfound passion for passion fruit. Between 2015 and 2017, the dark, seedy berry saw a 15 percent increase on menus, according to global market research firm Mintel’s 2018 U.S. Flavor Trends report. There have long been liqueurs that deliver the sweet, acidic flavor of passion fruit, such as Giffard and Passoã, but the newest kid on the block, Chinola, has made an immediate and juicy splash.

Produced in the small, agricultural town of Majagual, Dominican Republic, Chinola is a partnership between Michael Krychowecky, Andrew Merinoff and Robert Pallone, along with Bar Lab, the hospitality consultancy behind tropical bar Broken Shaker, which has locations in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York City. The tall bottle, with a label illustrated by tropical elements, is filled with the bright, orange liqueur that’s shelf-stable without the use of additives or preservatives. This is somewhat rare in world of fruit liqueurs, which sees its share of hypersweet high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden products.

What Exactly Is a Maraschino Cherry?

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The maraschino cherry is the star atop the cocktail Christmas tree. It’s an exclamation point on a beautiful mixed drink, a prize at the bottom of your aperitif, the goody when you’ve gulped down your glass.

For more than a century, drinkers have come to expect the cerise cutie stirred into their Manhattans, skewered onto tiny swords for daiquiris, or plopped atop their Tequila Sunrise. For as dainty and darling as the drink garnishes may be, however, the modern maraschino cherry is more science than nature. In fact, you might could call it a fruity Frankenstein.

Maraschino cherries were born out of necessity. European orchardists needed a way to preserve their precious marasca cherry harvests, which were prone to mush and rot as soon as they were plucked from the limbs of the trees. In the 18th century, cherry growers began bathing their crop in maraschino liqueur, which is made from the cherry’s fruit, pits, leaves, and stems. This helped the fruit last longer and also made it a treat that could transport easily.

By the late 19th century, the preserved cherries found their way to the U.S., where they were used in some hoity-toity foods of the day, like ice cream sundaes, custards, even salads. Soon, however, enterprising bartenders discovered the secret of the preserved cherry and began using them as a way to garnish glasses without having to stock as much fresh fruit.

The Differences Between Champagne, Prosecco and Cava

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For a long time Champagne was the only “good” sparkling wine that most Americans drank. Those days are long gone; today there’s a good chance you’ll see good Italian Proseccos and Spanish Cavas on wine lists and at your local wine shop. But what are the differences between these three popular sparklers? The chart below reveals the key differences — from the grapes used to how to decode the language of sweetness on the labels.