I like breakfast. I like to wake up late and eat breakfast late.

But I hate brunch. Which is puzzling because I do enjoy many brunch components.

But then there are the brunch drinks, and they are always the same dynamic duo. First, there is the mimosa, one of the worst drinks of all time. Hey, can I serve you some really cheap champagne topped with store-bought orange juice? Yum.

Which brings us to the other old brunch standby, the Bloody Mary.

My, my, Bloody Mary; you are a vexing drink. I want to love you, Mary, I really do. But even beyond my brunch aversion, you've got a few strikes against you. First, I'm not the biggest fan of tomato juice or Worcestershire sauce, and in the wrong bartending hands, you turn into a gloopy tomato-gravy disaster.

Next, Mary, can we be totally honest? The celery-stalk foliage is just ridiculous. Sure, everybody pretends to like it, and Lord knows we've been drinking you this way for a long time. But come on. A garnish should, well, garnish. Not take over the glass.

Finally, Mary, I think we need to get back to the way things were. None of these prefab mixes. A little more vodka and a little less tomato. And I think we too often forget that a dash of lemon juice helps keep things fresh and bright.

But despite the flaws, the Bloody Mary remains as popular as ever, probably the only cocktail served in every bar all over the world. It was invented by a bartender named Fernand Petiot at Harry's Bar in Paris during the 1920s. After Prohibition ended, Petiot moved to New York and served drinks at the bar in the St. Regis Hotel. Concerned that more conservative American patrons might be offended by the name, the St. Regis rechristened the drink the Red Snapper. The name didn't stick, and neither did the recipe: originally a mix of equal parts tomato juice and vodka, the Bloody Mary over the years devolved to its current mix of two parts tomato juice, one part vodka.

A friend and I recently stopped in at the St. Regis in Washington and had a few Bloody Marys off the official Bloody Mary Menu at Adour. The one I enjoyed best was the original Red Snapper, but we also liked variations such as the Capitol Mary (with gin, clam juice and prawns), the Great Wall Bloody Mary (with Tsing Tsao beer, sake and lime juice) and the Mary Terraneum (with extra-virgin olive oil, basil and oregano).

In his 1941 "Cocktail Guide and Ladies' Companion," Crosby Gaige published the Red Snapper recipe given to him by Gaston Lauryssen, host at the New York St. Regis. It calls for two ounces each of vodka and tomato juice, and it eschews Tabasco sauce for a simple pinch of cayenne pepper. In fact, with its equal-parts-vodka-and-tomato-juice mix, the Red Snapper becomes a wonderful palette on which to experiment with a pinch of this and a dash of that.

At home, I've been tinkering with the recipe, and I've found that I definitely prefer a pinch of cayenne over Tabasco, I like a touch more lemon juice than in most recipes, and I measure the Worcestershire sauce to a half-teaspoon to make sure too much doesn't squirt in. Instead of celery salt, I use a few dashes of my latest favorite ingredient, celery bitters, which are made by a German company called the Bitter Truth and will soon be legally available in the United States. (A bartender tells me it has yet to be approved for sale here.) Many of the finer bartenders in Washington already use them, and there are shops in the area that sell them clandestinely.

As for liquor, I've tried Red Snappers using aquavit and herb-flavored vodkas to good effect. But my favorite so far is a version using Square One organic cucumber vodka.