Bloody Marys are an interesting cocktail in many ways. Firstly, they’re not simple – both the ingredients and garnishes can be huge lists of spices and pickled things. Second, they occupy the very fun day drinking and traditional brunch-drink space with Mimosas and Bellinis.

That being said, we still like to keep things simple, even with something as complex as the Bloody Mary. If you visit the reviews page at this blog, you’ll see that I’ve tasted many natural ‘Mary mixes, and many of them are awesomely delicious. Recently, we had brunch at Simple Cocktails headquarters, and here’s how we did the Bloody Mary bar.

Get the liquor and the Bloody Mary mix in a pitcher, with ice, ahead of time. We got them ready 1/2 hour before brunch. I used regular vodka. while you may be tempted to break out the Hot Monkey for this occasion, not everyone likes a spicy  Bloody Mary. For our mix this time around, I got a jug of Trader Joe’s Garden Patch juice, which contains lots of tomato juice, several other veggie juices, plus a little lemon juice. We discovered it’s pretty great for Bloody Marys.

When your Bloody Mary is in the pitcher, you can go about setting out your garnishes. In this case, we set out celery sticks, jalapeño olives, regular olives, cornichons, Sriracha, salt and pepper, lemon and lime wedges. I pre-rimmed the glasses with Crazy Steve’s Bloody Mary Salt, too.

Once the party started, it was a simple process for everyone: pour your Bloody Mary into your glass and toss in all the garnishes you want. A small amount of prep will make is so that you have a simple, self-serve Bloody Mary bar next time you brunch!