The Bullshot just might be the most popular drink to ever come out of Detroit. In the 1950s, it was even more popular than the Last Word from the Detroit Athletic Club or the Hummer from the Bayview Yacht Club.
“It was known as a ‘freak drink,’” Tammy Coxen of Tammy’s Tastings said of the Bullshot mixed drink. “It was something that really was supposed to freak a bartender out, maybe challenge them. So, celebrities loved it; this was a way they could establish themselves,” she explained. (For more, visit here.)
This interesting concoction was first mixed up in 1952 at the Caucus Club in the Penobscot Building. The Caucus Club just reopened at its original site this month.
What was so freaky about the Bullshot? The recipe includes Campbell’s Beef Broth.
“The original recipe calls for it because the owner of the bar was friends with an advertising executive who had an account with Campbell’s. So there was a little bit of ‘co-marketing’ going on shall we say,” Coxen said.
The reopened Caucus Club is serving the Bullshot, but it’s an updated version of the drink.
It’s a lot like a bloody mary, but the beef broth stands in for tomato juice.
For Cheers! we mixed a cold Bullshot, but it’s said that it can also be served warm in the winter.
Bullshot
1-1/2 oz vodka (We used Two James 28 Island Vodka.)
2-1/2 oz Campbell’s beef broth
2 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
2 dashes of Tabasco hot sauce
Juice from the wedge of a lemon
Pour ingredients into a shaker with ice and shake. Strain into a rocks glass with ice cubes. Garnish with freshly ground black pepper.
