[4] Harry's Bar also claims to have created numerous other classic cocktails, including the White Lady and the Side Car.

[14] The addition of salt to the alcoholic beverage was suggested that same year in a story in Hearst's International Combined with Cosmopolitan.

[17] The tradition at Harry's New York Bar in Paris, according to manager Alain Da Silva in a 2011 interview, is that one of the patrons for whom the cocktail was first mixed in 1920 or 1921 declared, "It looks like my girlfriend who I met in a cabaret"; the cabaret's name was the Bucket of Blood and the girlfriend's name was Mary, so the patrons and bartender Petiot agreed to call it a "Bloody Mary".

[18] This gains some credibility from the anecdotal observation that the customer at the New York Bar for whom Petiot prepared the drink in 1920/21 was Vladimir Smirnov, of the Smirnoff vodka family.

[20] In the United States, the Bloody Mary is a common "hair of the dog" drink, reputed to cure hangovers with its combination of a heavy vegetable base (to settle the stomach), salt (to replenish lost electrolytes), and alcohol (to relieve head and body aches).

A common garnish is a celery stalk when served in a tall glass; other common garnishes include olives, cheese cubes, a dill pickle spear, lemon wedges, dried sausage, bacon, and shrimp (as the taste of the drink is often reminiscent of shrimp cocktail sauce).

Some variations of the Bloody Mary served by restaurants are designed to be a meal as well as a drink, coming with massive "garnishes" on skewers inserted into the glass, including ribs, miniature hamburgers called "sliders", grilled or fried shrimp, kebabs, sandwich wedges, fruit slices, and even sashimi.

[27] There is a considerable amount of variation available in the drink's construction and presentation including the use of different base spirits like bourbon, rye, tequila, or gin.

Gin is often preferred in the UK, sometimes called a Bloody Margaret[citation needed] or red snapper (although this name is also used for other variants), or ruddy Mary.

[30][31] Another notable variation is the Bull Shot, popular in the late '50s and '60s, which replaces tomato juice with beef bouillon or consommé.