Red Eye
Lager and tomato juice over ice, with a dash of hot sauce. The morning-after beer of the Canadian prairies and the 1988 film Cocktail — a Bloody Mary with the vodka swapped for a pint.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
Fill a pint glass with ice, or chill it well and skip the ice.
Pour in the tomato juice, and the hot sauce and celery salt if using.
Top with the cold lager, pouring down the side.
Stir once, and garnish with a lemon wedge. If you must add the egg, crack it in whole and do not stir.
A thoughtful finish
- A clean light lager and cold tomato juice. It is a two-ingredient drink and both need to be cold.
- Half and half is the Canadian ratio; two parts beer to one juice is lighter and more beer-like.
- Celery salt and a dash of hot sauce make it a Michelada's northern cousin and are worth adding.
Common mistakes
- A hoppy or dark beer. The bitterness fights the tomato.
- Shaking it.
- The egg, honestly. It is a film gag; the drink is better without.
A few good questions.
What is a Red Eye?
Beer and tomato juice, roughly half and half, over ice. A Canadian prairie drink, famous from the film Cocktail.
Is there an egg in it?
Only in the film and in bars that copied it. The traditional Calgary Red Eye has no egg.
How is it different from a Michelada?
A Michelada is Mexican lager with lime, hot sauce, Worcestershire and salt, sometimes tomato; a Red Eye is just beer and tomato juice. Add lime and spice and the two meet in the middle.
Does it cure a hangover?
It is cold, salty and contains beer. That is the whole argument.
Variations
- Michelada — Mexican lager with lime and spice.
- Bloody Mary — Vodka and tomato juice.
- Chelada — Lager, lime and salt.
- Black and Tan — Stout over ale.
Where it comes from
c. 1950s · Calgary, Alberta
Contested. More than one origin is claimed for this drink. We show the competing accounts rather than pick one.
Beer with tomato juice — the Calgary Red Eye — has been a prairie breakfast drink since at least the 1950s, and Alberta brewers have sold it pre-mixed in cans. The rest of the world met it in the 1988 film Cocktail, where Bryan Brown’s character drinks a Red Eye with a raw egg cracked into it as a hangover remedy, which many bars have copied since. The Mexican Michelada and the Clamato-based Caesar are its cousins; this is the plain northern version, and the egg is optional.
Sources
- Cocktail (film), Touchstone Pictures, 1988 (film)
- Garrett Oliver, The Oxford Companion to Beer, 2011 (book)
- Difford's Guide, Red Eye, 2015 (reference)
Strength. About 0.6 US standard drinks at an estimated 2.4% ABV, estimated from the ingredients and technique, not measured. What that means.
A little character in every sip.
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