It’s Sunday morning. Your brain is a wet pile of garbage, and your memories of last night are hazy, at best. As the blazing light of day sears into your eyes, you become lost in waves of nausea, and there is only one hero to save you: a Bloody Mary.
The Bloody Mary is the ideal post-party companion for several reasons. First, lycopene, an antioxidant found in tomato juice, is known for its ability to combat inflammation and reduce oxidative stress. Second, the bold spices in a Bloody Mary can help increase blood flow and distract from the sour stomach produced by a night of drinking. Lastly, getting slightly drunk again may not cure your hangover, but it will for sure make you start to forget about it.
For the past 11 years, Two Chicks has been serving Boody Marys with big, bold flavors that are equal parts comfortable and crushable, and for the fourth year in a row, RN&R readers have voted them the best in town. I chatted with co-owner Jessie Henderson about the magic of her team’s Bloody Mary, and what makes it a Reno classic.
“What we love most about owning Two Chicks is looking up from the kitchen and seeing people’s faces change after that first sip of Bloody Mary or bite of breakfast; it brings us back to why we started this in the first place,” Henderson said.
With two locations in Reno, Two Chicks sells roughly 200 Bloody Marys every weekend. The recipe-testing started back in 2013, before Two Chicks, when Jessie and her business partner, Haley Moseley, owned the beloved food truck GourMelt.
“We would get together every Wednesday, and after a lot of testing, we landed on recipes we loved,” Henderson said.
There are many theories out there about where this beloved brunch beverage originated. According to one of the most cited stories, the original father of the Bloody Mary was Fernand Petiot, while he was a young bartender at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris in the 1920s.The recipe would not be complete until Petiot moved to America; legend has it that Russian Prince Serge Obolensky asked for a little extra spice. With a few dashes of Tabasco, Petiot created the blueprint for the vodka, tomato, savory, spicy and citrus flavors that we use today.
“We have people who tell us they wait all year to come in after Burning Man and have a kimchi Bloody Mary to bring them back to reality.”
Two chicks co-owner jessie henderson
Other styles of Bloody Mary were born shortly after, like the gin-based red snapper, and the Canadian classic, the Caesar, made with Clamato.
Two Chicks offers four different Bloody Mary options: the classic, featuring a blend of the salty and savory house Bloody Mary mix and vodka; the Hawaiian, which adds a splash of pineapple juice; the spice lovers’ favorite, the chipotle Bloody Mary; and the cult classic, the kimchi Bloody Mary. The kimchi version is so beloved that it has become a part of many people’s post-Burning Man rituals.
“We have people who tell us they wait all year to come in after Burning Man and have a kimchi Bloody Mary to bring them back to reality,” Henderson said.
During the dark days of the pandemic, people especially needed that perfect morning sip. “People were coming in once a week and buying big containers of Bloody Mary,” Henderson said. “It sets the tone for the day, for sure.”
For the last 11 years, the team at Two Chicks has set us up to survive the Sunday scaries—or, at the very least, ushered us into some Sunday funday shenanigans.