Who is a Bloody Mary named after

A.� The Bloody Mary started life in the 1920s in Harry's New York Bar in Paris, where a barman named Fernand Petiot mixed vodka with tomato juice and called his creation 'The Bucket of Blood'. It wasn't a hit. Petiot decided to try his luck in the States and took his drink with him. However, because he couldn't guarantee a supply of vodka, he used gin instead and re-christened it 'The Red Snapper', which later got changed to The Bloody Mary. Who Mary was however, nobody knows.

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Q.� Why did it prove so popular

A.� It was sold as a hangover cure from the start, and is recognised as one of the great restorative cures.

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Q.� How do you make a Bloody Mary

A.� No one can ever agree what makes a great Bloody Mary, but the key ingredients are vodka, tomato juice and Worcestershire sauce. In Canada they substitute Clamato juice for tomato, adding horseradish sauce and celery salt, and calling the result a Caesar.

However, the traditional recipe is this:

2oz Peppar vodka

Pour ice over a Collins glass

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In a jug combine:

tomato juice

Worcestershire sauce

white pepper

salt

dash of celery salt

splash of fino sherry

splash of orange juice

tabasco sauce to taste

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Add to vodka and ice

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Q.� What is a Moscow Mule

A.� This is the other great vodka cocktail which has endured over the years.� The story goes like this: back in the 1940s John Martin of Heublein met in New York with Jack Morgan, the owner of the Cock 'n' Bull Restaurant in Hollywood. Morgan had a surplus of ginger beer, proving difficult to shift. martin wanted rid of the equally slow-moving Smirnoff Vodka. They put their heads together - and with a dash of lime juice created the Moscow Mule. Martin and Morgan went a step further and ordered 500 copper mugs to be engraved with a kicking mule - now highly prized by mixologists - and marketed them to bars. On the back of the mule, Smirnoff sales tripled between 1947 and 1950, and then doubled again the year after.

The recipe is this:

2oz vodka

ginger beer

squeeze of lemon juice

wedge of lime

|Pour vodka over ice in a collins glass. Add other ingredients and stir.

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Q.� Does vodka taste of anything

A.�True vodka is said to have verve and subtlety. It's said to be a whisper of aroma and nuances of flavour. Bill Samuels of Maker's Mark once said that bourbon died when Smirnoff began to be distilled in America. it became the great mixable spirit, and Smirnoff's early advertising claimed, 'it was the drink that made you breathless'. By 1975, vodka had become America's most popular spirit, and its flavour, strength and versatility was loved all over the world.

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By Katharine MacColl