New sour pickle vodka hoping to wow Bloody Mary lovers

While the Bloody Mary has long been a staple of the Sunday brunch, I have seen a renaissance of sorts in the past few months, especially on Instagram, of the art of making The Bloody Mary. At its simple core is vodka and tomato juice, but then what we do next is where the art comes in. Adding creative ingredients, spices, and garnishes, embellishing here and there, with this and that pretty much makes making the Bloody Mary as fun as drinking them.

Now, more than ever, the choices of vodka have exploded. Flavored vodkas aren’t new, but they are getting even more creative, as distillers are thinking specifically of how to win over Bloody Mary fans, looking for the next great flavor.

After studying Bloody Market trends and researching the existing pickle vodka market, Mark Weaver, owner of Backwood Craft Spirits noticed an opportunity.

“The pickle vodkas, in a few pockets, were primarily made with dill pickles and made in various methods. I decided to use a sour pickle made with real juice because it is the true taste of pickles and the sour pickle mixes much better than a dill,” said Weaver.

Weaver uses real pickle juice as opposed to pickle flavoring. He then mixes that with his own vodka in a continuous filtration that maintains the full pickle flavor and combines perfectly for a clean, balanced new Texacraft Sour Pickle Vodka.

Now, as a man who loves his spirits served neat, I will tell you that you can sip Sour Pickle Vodka straight, but it really is destined to be in a Bloody Mary. Here is where it shines. To try it out, here is the recipe I used, harkening back to my college bartending days, where still believe I mastered the Bloody Mary.

Bacon was not a thing in the late 80s, so if you’re into that, go ahead.

For fun, I even tried out a Sour Pickle Vodka Dry Martini. Worked fine.

You can also take a shot of the Sour Pickle and drop it in your favorite beer to make a  PickleBack – Beer Bomb!