Dodge Hotel Tomato Juice Cocktail from 1930
Reader ratingsChilled tomato juice with salt, horseradish and a little sugar: the alcohol-free tomato juice cocktail that a Washington hotel said it served more than any other recipe on its menu in 1930.
- Recipe makes
- About 4 cups, 8 small glasses
- Prep
- Total
Chill for at least an hour before serving.
The Dodge Hotel tomato juice cocktail in small glasses, with a jug and a dish of horseradish.
The story behind the recipe
This is the tomato juice cocktail of a Washington, D.C., hotel in 1930: tomato juice with salt, a spoonful of horseradish and a little sugar, mixed and served cold, with no spirit in it. Roxana Doran printed it in Prohibition Punches, a book of soft drinks published in Philadelphia that year, with the hotel’s own note beside it: “Served more than any other recipe on our menu.”
A first course from the dry years
In 1930 a tomato juice cocktail was usually a starter, not a bar drink. It came to the table in a small glass as the first course, as What Was a Tomato Juice Cocktail? shows, and the word “cocktail” only borrowed the bar’s name in a decade when the bar was closed by law. The Dodge Hotel’s version is the plainest we have found: no cooking, no celery or onion, just juice and three seasonings.
A year later the USDA’s Aunt Sammy cooked her tomatoes with celery, green pepper and onion; that richer glass is Aunt Sammy’s Tomato Cocktail, a 1931 First Course. Broadway had already put gin in the tomato juice in 1929, in Gin and Tomato Juice, the 1929 Hangover Cocktail, and this glass is the alcohol-free one to pour beside it.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
Use plain canned or bottled tomato juice, and taste it before adding the salt, since many brands are already salted. The horseradish settles, so stir the jug before you pour. It is the sober half of a pair: the same tomato juice had gone into the gin hangover glass a New York columnist described the year before, and both are in The Bloody Mary Before It Had a Name.
TOMATO JUICE COCKTAIL. 2 quarts tomato juice or purée, 1½ teaspoons salt ...
The recipe goes on with a tablespoon of horseradish and a teaspoon of sugar, mixed and served chilled, and is signed “Dodge Hotel, Washington, D. C.”
Recipe makes: About 4 cups, 8 small glasses
Ingredients
For About 4 cups, 8 small glasses. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 4 cups, 8 small glasses.
- Tomato juice4 cups
- Fine salt3/4 tsp
- Prepared horseradish1 1/2 tsp
- Sugar1/2 tsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 4 cups tomato juice
- 3/4 tsp fine salt
- 1 1/2 tsp prepared horseradish
- 1/2 tsp sugar
Equipment
Jug with a lid
Small glasses, about 4 fl oz
Instructions
Pour the tomato juice into the jug.
Stir in the fine salt, prepared horseradish and sugar until the salt and sugar dissolve.
Cover and chill for at least an hour. Stir again and pour into the small glasses.
Nutrition
20calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 4 cups, 8 small glasses
- Servings
- 8
Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for canned tomato juice, prepared horseradish and granulated sugar, for one 1/2-cup glass.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is half the hotel’s batch of two quarts.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Changes from the source: half the hotel’s quantities, with tomato juice rather than purée. Prepared horseradish is our reading of “horseradish”, and the chilling time is ours. Salt to taste if your juice is already salted.
Storage
Keep it covered in the fridge and drink it soon. Stir before pouring.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Dodge Hotel, Washington, D.C., “Tomato Juice Cocktail”, in Roxana B. Doran, Prohibition Punches (Philadelphia, 1930), p. 58
Recipe details
- Drink
- Alcohol-free
- Drink family
- Sodas & Soft Drinks
- Region
- American
- Source decade
- 1930s
- Base
- Fruit & juice
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- ChristmasDinner partyDry January