The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink

Bloody Mary and Virgin Mary

An essential Bloody Mary ingredient is tomato juice, which was not available commercially untill 1929. Decades earlier, chefs had experimented unsuccesfully with juicing tomatoes. When juiced, tomato solids quickly separate and settle at the bottom of a can or glass. This problem was not solved untill John Kemp and his son Ralph, of Frankfort, Indiana, began experimenting with breaking tomato pulp into minute particles that floated in the juice. They did this with a viscolizer, a machine used in making ice cream. After four years of work, the Kemps finally succeeded in 1928, and the following year they began manufacturing the first tomato juice. Tomato juice was an instant hit with the American public. The H. J. Heinz Company and the Campbell Soup Company moved into high gear to produce and promote their own brands of tomato juice, and by 1935 more then eight million cases of tomato juice were sold in Amerca.