Rub A Garlic Clove Around The Inside Of Your Bloody Mary Glass

It is hard, in my opinion, to add enough garlic to food, let alone too much. I usually double (or triple) the amount called for in a recipe, and I have been known to add it to recipes that did not call for it all. But things get tricky when you try to add garlic to drinks, even umami-packed, savoury beverages like a Bloody Mary.

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Garlic’s raw power simply doesn’t translate well in sipping situations. A small portion of a chopped clove can make your drink overpoweringly pungent, and even the finest chop can feel chunky when sipped. To harness that power—to deliver just a hint, a whiff, a soupçon of the golden allium in your Bloody—simply take a halved clove and rub it around the inside of your glass before your pour.

Rubbing a halved clove imparts just enough garlicky flavour to your drink without dominating the other flavours of the beverage, and eliminates the presence of unpleasant chunks. (I guess you could juice a bunch of garlic and add it by dropper, but you’d have to make a lot of Bloodies for that to be worth it.) The halved-clove rub is an elegant solution: just slice one lengthwise and rub the cut side along the inside of the lip of your glass before building your Bloody as you usually would (ideally with horseradish vodka).