Red Snapper Vs Bloody Mary: What's The Difference Between The Cocktails?

The bloody mary is a cocktail that's extremely open to adaptation and experimentation. First, start with the baseline of a stellar bloody mary, the strange bedfellow combination of tomato juice, savory ingredients, spices, and alcohol. You'll soon find that the recipe can be seamlessly altered to suit just about anyone's preferences. This is already apparent in basic additions you can make to the bloody mary, such as adding beef broth to achieve a higher degree of umami flavor –- but the adjustments can go far beyond that, and some even have their own names.

Swapping out the spirit component in a cocktail might seem like a drastic move at first glance, but this is actually how many tasty and unique cocktails are conceived. You might have already encountered a bloody mary that forgoes vodka for a more unconventional liquor, such as the "bloody Maria," which uses tequila or mezcal in place of vodka. But one spirit from across the pond can give your bloody mary an extra herbal kick. 

One of the most popular variants of the bloody mary is the red snapper. The red snapper in this case is not a fish but rather a bloody mary that uses gin as its base. The juniper-laden spirit will infuse your savory cocktail with an herbaceous presence that's practically impossible to achieve with any other spirit, elevating your bloody mary to new heights!

While gin might initially seem a little left-field as a spirit choice for a bloody mary, especially when you consider the neutrality of the original vodka, its inclusion in the red snapper isn't completely baseless. On top of being one of the key base spirits that deserves a place behind any bar, gin has a history of being a bit of a super-sub in certain cocktails. Take the "London mule" for example, which swaps out the traditional vodka for (you guessed it) a fine London dry gin. There's even precedent for gin being used in classic "hair of the dog" cocktails –- one of the areas in which the bloody mary specializes. The pre-prohibition corpse reviver no. 2 cocktail is a refreshing and stimulating mix of gin, lemon, Lillet, and orange liqueur, complete with an absinthe rinse, and was often used as a pick-me-up just like its savory tomato-based counterpart.

It should also be noted that the red snapper currently in question is not the only red snapper cocktail out there. There's another completely separate drink that combines whiskey (usually Canadian whiskey), amaretto, and cranberry juice, and can be made as either a standalone cocktail or as a shot. So if you order a red snapper at a bar, take extra care to ensure you're getting the right one -– an extra dose of pickle juice isn't going to be nice in this version of the red snapper.