The Quest for the Perfect Bloody Mary

Horseradish vodka is one of the many reasons I am thankful for friends. Not only is it fun to make and delicious, this treat bridges all gaps, tears down all borders…

While I was studying abroad in Ecuador my Junior year of college I met the two most amazing people ever (3 if you count Boyfriend, but he is not so much a part of this story)! Among many of the fantastic adventures we had while we were there one of them was the quest for the perfect Bloody Mary. In Ecuador there is a fruit called Tomate de Arbol. Let me tell you, tomatoes of the tree are nothing like a tomato of the ground (as we came to call regular tomatoes). Tomate de Arbol is best blended with vanilla and water or milk to make juice. Tomate de arbol is not good in a Bloody Mary. We searched high and low for Bloody Mary’s that had 1)regular tomatoes 2)anything spicy 3)vodka (not sugarcane alcohol). We even went as far as to try to make our own with a blender, tomatoes, and a couple of things we were hoping were horseradish and Worcestershire sauce. Needless to say, all attempts failed.

Until about 3 weeks ago I had completely forgotten about our quest, and had still never even tasted a proper Bloody Mary. Then horseradish vodka came into my life.

At my new job I met a fabulous couple. I work closely with the wife on a food project, and I also work with the husband on grant related stuff. They are also our neighbors, and we go over for dinner all the time because they are amazing people, amazing cooks, and have an amazing apartment.

One night when we were sitting around he (our neighbor) started passing out shots of this liquid of gods. It turns out that, along with being a doctor and a chemist, he is an expert on all beverages. Horseradish infused vodka is the ultimate Bloody Mary vodka, or accompaniment to a steak dinner. Upon our request he taught us how to infuse it for our Christmas baskets to take to my Bloody Mary Hunting friends in Portland. Finally the quest will end!

How to make Horseradish Vodka:

Buy really fresh horse radish, peel it, rinse it off, and grate it up. Be careful as onions have nothing on horseradish for making the preparer cry, and I don’t recommend grating it with your eyes closed.

In a clean mason jar put about a 1:3::horseradish:vodka (you remember the SATs don’t you) and let it sit for at least a week or two. The official story is you are supposed to let it sit in a dark place for 40 days and 40 nights, but we got a little excited and drank it after about 14 days.

Stole vodka is recommended, but we have also used Sky and Monopolowi which were also delicious.

After you have let it sit, strain out the horseradish. Let it sit and decant (pour off the top into a clean jar and leave the sediment part in the old jar. Put your product in the freezer for the most impressive presentation. You can sip it straight, or mix it with your favorite Bloody Mary fixins. I recommend lemon, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, salt, and tomato (of the ground) juice – no need for hot sauce as the vodka has quite a kick.

Eco Lodge

After returning from the mariposario, Boyfriend and I decided that we couldn’t see much more jungle from the city and decided that we should probably go to an eco-lodge. Eco-lodges all have offices in the city, so just in time to be caught in the torrential downpour of the afternoon, we began our search. The first place that we went was a moto-taxi ride away and boasted water slides and paved jungle paths. Bzzzz! No way! Despite the ever lowering price, we were not looking for a cruise ship vacation.

I was a little bummed, thinking all of the eco-lodges would be this way, but Boyfriend talked me into going to another place that was close to our hostel. We were relieved upon entering both by the cool temperatures provided by the air conditioner and the sign on the door that said that the prices were non-negotiable. We booked a 2night 3 day trip to an awesome lodge 140 kilometers up the Amazon River by boat. We were fitted for rubber boots (boyfriend got a sweet hat too) by Mad Mick, an Englishman who ran a shop just upstairs from the lodge office, and made plans to meet the boat the next morning.

We had the small problem of having packed for mountain trekking instead of jungle adventuring. The only long pants and shirts we had were long underwear which are not conducive to hot, humid, jungle environments. We really needed long clothes to help keep bugs off, so we searched for the TopiTop only to discover it had already closed for the day. We continued to the nearest pharmacy and bought some bug spray with 7% DEET (the highest they had/not very strong). The next morning the van picked us up and, after a quick stop at the now open TopiTop where we purchased long pants and long sleeve shirts for both of us for 47 soles ($15) total, we were loaded onto a power boat and headed up the Amazon.

We raced up the river past villages, jungle, abandoned ship yards, and one big looking city/town. I suppose I can’t complain because I am always barfing everywhere, but Boyfriend has a very small bladder. After an hour in the boat we had to stop and let him pee. It ended up being awesome because while we were waiting a pod of gray river dolphins swam by the boat. After Boyfriend re-boarded and we told him what he had missed, we continued another 2 hours up the river, and then, after waiting for a dog to swim across, up a side spit to our destination where we were greeted by lunch.

The schedule for our eco-lodge adventure was as follows

Adventure, Eat, Nap, Adventure

Because Thanksgiving is an unusual time to travel to an eco-lodge in the middle of the Amazon, we were lucky enough to have a tour guide all to ourselves for the first day and a half, and then we were joined by a German couple who were very nice (and significantly cooler than the father son pair who had arrived with us the day before). It would take far too long to go into detail about everything that we did so I think a list of our activities is the best bet. We went on jungle hikes both on tierra firma, and in the swampier areas, went in canoes to look for birds and other early rising wildlife, fished for piranha, searched for pink and gray river dolphins, swam in the Amazon, and went on night excursions to search for cayman and other nocturnal animals. During these adventures we saw a sloth, marmosets, tarantulas, macaws, toucans, gray and pink dolphins, squirrel monkeys, all kinds of hawks, kingfishers, egrets, herons, and other bids that I was not familiar with, catfish, piranha, a cayman (luckily from very far away), dozens of different types of ants and their nests, a baby jaguar paw print in the mud, frogs, toads, and we swung from vines like Tarzan.

The cottages were raised high enough not to flood when the waters rose to the peak a few months down the road, and were made of blue screen pulled over a wooden frame and a thatch roof. The in room bathroom was made more private with wooden walls and a door. The common area, which included comfy chairs and the dining area, was constructed in the same manner. To get from hut to dining room there were elevated wooden paths (for when the river was high) and the same path led down to the boat dock. The food was delicious and water, coffee and tea were provided. It was perfect!

Mariposario

Our activity of the day, we decided, was to go to a local mariposario, or butterfly farm, which was located a little ways up the river. We caught a moto-taxi and headed to the next little neighborhood to catch a boat. We had a really hard time shaking the moto-taxi driver who wanted to be our personal guide for the entire trip, for a fee of course. Finally after several attempts to shake him in a friendly way I pretended to look the other way while Boyfriend explained that we needed some alone time *wink wink*. The taxi driver did help us bargain a boat ride. For 24 soles, about $8, we had a 30 min boat ride up the river to the mariposario. The boat driver also waited for us for about 2 hours and returned us to the dock.

The boat ride was awesome! We went past abandoned ship production sites and riverside jungle. Even more awesome than the boat ride was the mariposario. It was a butterfly farm, and a jungle animal rescue center. We got to see up close jaguars, tapirs (my spirit animal), anteaters, capybara, and several kinds of monkeys. Also I almost cried/peed my pants when we were told to look at something in the water, and I thinking it was going to be a river dolphin, complied only to see caiman, one of the things I am most scared of on earth.

Amazon on a Whim

About 15 min after arriving in the Lima airport all of the symptoms of my altitude sickness had left. Now that I was thinking a little more clearly I was of course very upset because I thought that I had ruined our vacation. I was also not enjoying the prospect of returning to the family Thanksgiving that was already promising to be disastrous before our departure.

Luckily, as we sat miserable in the Lima airport, we noticed the back of our Lonely Planet (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/) It said “Glide past manatees, dolphins, monkeys, and macaws in the Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samira” so, after taking a quick glance at page 482 as indicated on the back cover, we walked over to the ticket counter and said “2 tickets on your next flight to Iquitos please.” The next thing we know we are in a moto-taxi flying down the streets to a hostel in the colonial rubber town.

The moto-taxis are typical of Iquitos which can only be reached by airplane or by boat in the Amazon River. They are small motorcycles with a surrey-like cart on the back large enough to fit 2-3 people comfortably.

City of Iquotos is very unusual in appearance. Iquitos was a major rubber export town because of the easy access provided by the Amazon River to the Atlantic Ocean. The rubber was harvested from jungle trees along the river and transported to the US and England. When model T Fords first started being widely produced, the rubber for their tires came from Iquitos. As such an important colonial trade hub, Iquitos was built into a grand city. The huge colonial buildings with their Portuguese tile outsides are still everywhere. Monsieur Eiffel, of the Eiffel Tower, even built a building on the corner of the main square. When somebody illegally smuggled some rubber tree seeds and planted them in easy to harvest rows, Iquitos was abandoned by the wealthy Rubber Barons. Without the incredible amount of resources pouring into the city, over the years the buildings, which are still used for local business and homes, have fallen into a state of moderate disrepair.

We know all of this rich history of Iquitos now, but because we had arrived at night we had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. We could not see the tile buildings, or the view of the river. We had checked into a hostel at the recommendation of our moto-taxi driver who made $ from the hostel off of his recommendation. After a restless night in the muggy room we awoke to all kinds of ruckus. People were screaming and cheering at what seemed to be regular intervals. We lay on the bed for a while, reading our travel book and making plans of what we were going to do that day, and how we were going to get the heck out if the spur of the moment decision to go to Iquitos turned out to be a bad one.

We finally left the hostel and were relived to find that the ruckus was coming from the high school that was directly outside of the hostel door, and that we were in a perfectly safe riverside city.

When It Comes to travel, I Suppose I'm Just a Little Disaster Inclined

As can be expected when traveling, our Peru trip did not go as planned, but it was nevertheless amazing. We arrived, as planned in Lima to wait for our connecting flight to Cuzco. We had mis-planned a little bit and instead of having a 4 hour layover, we had an 8 hour layover. We found some comfy chairs at a Starbucks (odd, I know) and Boyfriend was able to catch some sleep while I avidly finished the trashy novel that I brought for the plane. Finally we made it to Cuzco. As we disembarked the plane and walked down the long hallway to pick up our baggage, I clutched the wall and crouched to put my head between my knees to keep from fainting. Slowly we made it to the baggage claim area, and found our bags and made it into a cab. By this time the combination of lack of sleep and lack of oxygen had rendered me incoherent. Luckily boyfriend was still able to communicate. We made it to a hostel and promptly went to bed. The short version of the story? I got altitude sickness and, despite staying for 3 days to try to acclimatize, and drinking about 2 gallons of coca tea, we had to head back to Lima.