Woody's Wharf, Newport Beach

https://woodyswharf.com

3.75 🍅's

Marriage: betting someone half your shit that you’ll love them forever. Lucky for me I don’t have that much shit. I am also confident that I found my soulmate, so no worries there. So, when you’ve made it through your first year of marriage and you’re still confident you made the right decision, you celebrate!

For our one year anniversary, we decided to take a trip up to LA to get away. My husband surprised me by renting a convertible for the drive up the coast. It was all very romantic until about halfway I started to get hangry. Hangry is a serious condition folks, just ask my husband. We stopped in Newport Beach for food and bloodys, because no vacation has officially started until you have a bloody mary.

I chose Woody's Wharf, located in the heart of Newport with views of Newport Bay. If you’re lucky enough to own a yacht or even a boat in the area you can cruise up to the docks for dockside service or boat docking. 

I was thoroughly pleased when I read the specialty cocktail list and I saw, The Ultimat Bloody. I was quite surprised when my bloody arrived to our table. The bloody is garnished with a slice of crispy bacon, olive, lime, the most delicate looking stalk of celery and a jumbo, jumbo shrimp. The largest pieces of shrimp I’ve seen on a bloody mary garnish, ever. The bloody is served in a pint glass and rimmed with bacon salt mixed with Ultimat Vodka, hence the name. Despite there being a lot of flavors going on, there is an ease to drinking the bloody mary and the flavors are well balanced.

Woody’s Wharf uses "The Finest Call Bloody Mary Mix," which has a heavy hand on garlic and pepper flavors. Woody’s then adds horseradish and pepper to give you the standard bloody mary flavor and sinus clearing properties. For heat, instead of tabasco, Woody’s adds Cholula Hot Sauce (my personal favorite) which leaves a lingering of heat, longer than the traditional tabasco. This mix has another bloody mary staple to bring the savory and tangy notes; Worcestershire sauce. Lastly, a surprise ingredient, that was foreign to my knowledge of bloody mary ingredients, adding an extra sweetness that ties together the flavors of the worcestershire sauce, is orange juice. Woody’s Wharf bloody mary will have your taste buds dancing to the tune of many different flavors, yet "Ultimat(ly)" satisfied.

As I drank my bloody mary and finally ate some food (shrimp cobb salad that was delicious) and looked into my soulmate's eyes, I couldn’t help but be grateful for the shit I do have, and would gladly bet all, not just half of it, on us.