Recipe: Playa Mary

There’s a little back story I’d like to share on this before I get to the recipe. Last year for Burning Man I prepared several pounds of finely grated horse radish to make Bloody Mary’s, since BloodyMaryLand wasn’t going to be on the playa that year. It went well, but this year I wanted to have an easier time making the drinks. For that reason, I decided to try infusing horse radish and vodka, which I call Whore’s Radish Vodka, so I could simplify the recipe. It worked great. I now have an easy to prepare, three ingredient, recipe for a Bloody Mary that I like to call a Playa Mary.

Both the Playa Mary‘s and Whore’s Radish Vodka were a success. I was pretty open with the recipe, and told folks they could use it. Turns out one of the folks who was very vocal about liking the recipe has connections at Tecate, which I didn’t learn until later that day; so I didn’t grok his seriousness when he said I might see my drink on the shelves sometime soon. This later spawned a discussion regarding ‘Open Source Liquor’, and how that needed to be a thing. (“Free as in speech, not as in vodka.”)

So, here I am; publishing my instructions under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa) (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). I’m all OK with anyone using it, but I’d like some credit and maybe even my playa name and picture on the label.

I am going to be doing a limited bottling, and each label will contain the instructions for reproducing Whore’s Radish Vodka and for making a Playa Mary. How cool is that?


Instructions for making a Playa Mary
Copyright Chris Knight
License: Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa) (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

1. One cup of ice in a cup or glass.
2. Three or four shakes of Old Bay Seasoning.
3. A few drops of Tabasco or Sriracha, if desired.
4. One or two shots of Whore's Radish Vodka.
5. Half to a full can of V8 Juice

There you have it. Open Source Liquor. Compliments of Ghostwheel.