What's in your perfect Bloody Mary?

Last week my family and I took an impromptu vacation (our first in 8 years according to Little Sister) to Topsail Island and I ordered a few Bloody Mary cocktails to take full advantage of the beachy state of mind.

An extra spicy Bloody Mary at Beach Shop was a tasty start:

We found ourselves at Beach Shop in search of breakfast until 11am and a wifi (I mistakenly booked the one house on the island without internet access... which is the reason I got a real vacation in for four days!), but stayed for finding the bottom of the glass. Two thumbs up. (Note: If it had been a bottomless cocktail special, it would have taken us MUCH longer to find the bottom of the glass. We found the bottom of bottomless Mimosas at Carter's Kitchen in Charleston a few months ago. More on that at another time...)

For a Sunday afternoon early dinner, we made it to Rick's, where sorority sister and beach joiner DG joined in on the Bloody Mary action. We ordered them "extra spicy" (notice a pattern here?) but at Rick's, that meant extra horseradish, rather than extra Tabasco sauce and/or black pepper. While they were good, DG and I agreed we'd be more specific about our next "extra spicy" request.

Fast forward to tonight - Wednesday. I'm back from the beach and busting my hiney at work (per the usual) and decided I deserved a cocktail with dinner. I had Ketel One in the freezer (is there any other kind of vodka?), V8 in the fridge, pickled okra, pickles, and giant olives stuffed with pimientos. Oh, and cracked black pepper. It all went right in the glass with ice. #nom

So that brings me to the question of the day... how do you make for or ask for what you consider to be the perfect Bloody Mary? I like 'em spicy and the more pickled vegetables you can fit in the glass, the better. #vegetarianlife

My WRAL.com cohort Jodi recently published her Five Faves: Best Bloody Mary article about places to get a good version in the Triangle. You know, just throwing that out there for your reading pleasure while we're discussing the reddest of vegetable cocktails.