21 Best Bloody Mary Mix Brands, Ranked

The Bloody Mary is a favorite for vodka drinkers, as well as those trying to get going after a hard night. For those who prefer tequila, a distant cousin is the Bloody Maria. Such savory drinks have become a brunch staple, the perfect pairing for everything from steak and eggs to a fluffy cheese souffle.

An American bartender at Harry's New York Bar in Paris in the 1920s named Fernand Petiot is credited as the first to combine vodka and tomato juice, calling it the Bloody Mary. In the 1930s, Petiot moved to New York, introducing the cocktail to patrons at King Cole Bar, adding additional flavorings to satisfy the American palate. These included ingredients still enjoyed today, like lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, and Tabasco hot sauce.

Today, dozens of producers offer pre-mixed, packaged Bloody Mary mix with such additions as horseradish, sriracha, and serrano peppers. So, where does one start? We taste-tested 21 brands to identify the best mix to create the ultimate tried and true Bloody Mary. Read on for the rankings.

In the late 1950s, former professional baseball star Francis Joseph "Lefty" O'Doul opened a popular pub in San Francisco. It was the place to go for sports fans, celebrities, and lovers of tasty cocktails. Lefty died in 1969, but today a line of mixers bearing his name remain in the city, including the "San Francisco Original Bloody Mary Mix" and "Spicy Ghost Pepper Bloody Mary Mix."

While the story is terrific, it raises eyebrows that Lefty's combination of traditional ingredients results in 100 calories for every three-ounce serving in both varieties. Each serving also contains 13 grams of sugar and 30% of your daily sodium. Considering most cocktails include five or six ounces of a mixer, Lefty O'Doul's adds an unnecessarily sugary, caloric boost to what is traditionally a low-calorie cocktail.

Clamato is a good option for a Bloody Mary if you are okay with doctoring the drink; it will require extensive enhancement to create a top-notch version. Clamato includes tomato juice, onion, garlic, red chili pepper, and an essential item, clam broth, making it the ideal base for another brunch favorite, the Caesar cocktail. 

The clam broth adds a seafood-rich taste, reminiscent of a classic shrimp cocktail. That taste is enhanced when adding accouterments like bacon-wrapped scallops or crab claws to the cocktail's garnish, making an ultimate seafood Bloody Mary.

It is available in various flavors, including picante and Michelada, which pairs nicely with tequila or beer. Every four-ounce pour has 30 calories, 5.5 grams of sugar, and around 400 mg of sodium, comparable with other brands.

The Mr. & Mrs. T brand has produced cocktail mixes for over 60 years, and it is one of the most popular Bloody Mary mixers available. Unfortunately, longevity doesn't always equal taste.

A staple of airline travel in the 1960s when an executive with American Airlines first fell in love with the product, Mr. & Mrs. T became the entire fleet's brand. Today it remains the go-to brand for American Airlines, Delta, and United.

Offerings include the original, zesty pepper, bold & spicy, and horseradish flavors. While the products have a good tomato flavor, with the horseradish and spicy flavors increasing the heat with cayenne and jalapeno pepper, habanero sauce, and horseradish, for a standard Mary you could do better.

The "T" mixers possess a sweetness from cane sugar that detracts from its savory qualities. There is also a mix of processed flavor enhancers, like hydrolyzed corn protein, disodium guanylate, and disodium inosinate — so if you're trying to avoid processed foods, maybe make a different choice next time you're at 30,000 feet.

It's very helpful that Q Mixers come in convenient, seven-and-a-half-ounce cans. This means you don't have to open an entire bottle of a mix if you only want one cocktail. 

Each individual can offers nearly two servings, totaling 50 calories and 1040 mg of sodium. The sodium level is high (you'll likely use the entire can for one drink), but for some it might be worth it; Q packs a punch of rich, zesty, satisfying flavor into each.

The mix includes expected ingredients (rich tomato paste, horseradish, jalapeno peppers, Worcestershire, lemon, and a blend of spices), creating a full-bodied drink perfect for brunch dishes like garlic and mushroom frittata. Q's umami and garlic notes should have no problem elevating the taste of the egg-based dish.

In 2012, three cocktail afficionado friends launched Hella Cocktail Co. in Brooklyn. The goal was simple: Create premium quality mixers from all-natural ingredients. Hella Bloody Mary mix has real lemon juice, horseradish, celery seed, cayenne pepper, and more, delivering well-rounded tomato and celery flavor without needing additional ingredients beyond your preferred liquor. 

The product is available in both a classic and spicy style, with the latter adding red pepper extract to the mix, punching up the heat and spice while providing a little extra kick to the classic version. Both selections contain authentic Worcestershire sauce with anchovies, so Hella is not vegan. However, the addition of the fish in the drink gives it an umami-rich taste. Each four-ounce serving has 25 calories, and zero added sugars.

Master of Mixes range of Bloody Mary mixers includes "Classic," "Loaded," "Michelada," and "Five Pepper," each offering something for every kind of Bloody Mary drinker, from those who prefer a mellow drink to those who loves the heat. Each variation is non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan, kosher, and hand-crafted by chef Anthony Lamas. 

The Classic flavor evokes a balanced vegetable juice. It contains roasted garlic, roasted onion, and real celery puree instead of powders. The Loaded adds lime juice, cucumber puree, and horseradish to the classic mix, while Five Pepper brings the heat with a combination of roasted and crushed peppers, including jalapeno, Anaheim, and aji. The biggest downside to these mixers is the high sodium content, particularly the Five Pepper, which packs a whopping 1040 mg per four-ounce serving.

Zing Zang is a widely-available, crowd-pleasing option. It has bold veggie flavors from a tomato and vegetable juice mix, including beets, carrots, celery, and spinach. It has a delicious celery flavor too, which is helpful if you don't have the traditional garnish on hand.

While the original delivers a well-rounded drink, it lacks the spicy heat you might want in a Bloody Mary. The brand's "Blazing" flavor, however, brings that fiery punch, balanced with sweetness from the inclusion of sugar. 

Zing Zang uses processed ingredients, like MSG, disodium guanylate, and disodium inosinate, to enhance the mixer's flavor, and it is high in sodium, which isn't ideal. However, it is one of the most affordable brands, with only 20 calories in each three-ounce serving.

Tequila producer Tres Agaves  offers a certified U.S.D.A. organic Bloody Mary mix that is vegan, gluten-free, and made without the addition of high fructose corn syrup or cane sugar. Instead, the producer adds organic agave to the organic tomato paste and water base. The agave balances other ingredients, like the spiciness of the organic chili pepper, the tang of organic lemon juice, and the salty bite from the high sodium content, 740 mg per four-ounce serving.

The Tres Agaves offering was a hit, offering the ideal punch of heat for a morning-time cocktail. It has a well-rounded tomato flavor and spice from herbs, garlic, and onion. While the umami of Worcestershire sauce is noticeably absent, it could also make a great base for a Michelada.

Pickle producer McClure's began the production of Bloody Mary mix in 2012, six years after brothers Bob and Joe McClure began pickling cucumbers using a passed-down family recipe. The pickling brine became a key ingredient in one of today's finest Bloody Mary mixes. The ingredients list for McClure's is one of the most concise. The gluten-free, kosher Bloody Mary mix offers a combination of herbaceous, garlicky flavor and a burst of tang using only water, vinegar, tomato, cucumber juice, garlic, dill, salt, and pepper. 

Pair it with cucumber-flavored vodka or an herbaceous, botanical gin that will enhance the herbal notes in the mix. It is available in the original "Mild" flavor and "Spicy," both with 25 calories in each four-ounce serving. We thoroughly love both. However, the heat in McClure's spicy mix is tame compared to similar brands' options, with tomato juice and salty, briny pickle juice flavors remaining in the forefront.

Real Dill's "Bloody Mary Mix" is fresh, balanced, and deliciously made by pickle producers in Denver. Combining tomato paste with cucumber juice, vinegar, garlic, dill, horseradish, and habanero creates a complete flavor combination that awakens the brunch-time palate with a pickle-forward, briny tang. Check out "Extra Spicy" (with serrano peppers) for a robust mix loaded with garlic, tasting  like a spicy tomato and cucumber salad. 

The product's inception came at weekly farmers markets, where co-founders Justin Parks and Tyler DuBois mixed Bloody Marys using the brine from their habanero horseradish dill pickles. It became so popular they bottled it utilizing cucumber water, a byproduct of the pickling process. 

Every small-batch bottle includes the production month and batch number, produced in one-quart bottles. Vegan and gluten-free, 25 calories per four-ounce serving, it is one of the best Bloody Mary mixes, with a mouth-coating texture and herbaceous, piquant, pickled flavor.