Today is...

[IceWizard]

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Sunday 1 Jan 2017

National Bloody Mary Day



Bloody Mary Day celebrates the drinking of the Bloody Mary cocktail, which is described by some as the perfect hangover cure despite containing the very thing that made you hung over in the first place: alcohol!

The Bloody Mary is most often made with vodka, tomato juice and some spices, served on the rocks with a celery stalk or a dill pickle.

The History of Bloody Mary Day

The origin of Bloody Mary Day is as shrouded in mystery and intrigue as the history of the drink itself.

Even the name is quite enigmatic, with various scholars suggesting it was named after Queen Mary I of England, Hollywood star Mary Pickford, or even a waitress named Mary who worked at the Bucket of Blood bar in Chicago all given as possible namesakes.

There are also three versions of the story of where the Bloody Mary drink was first made. Fernand Petiot, a bartender that was originally from France, claimed to have invented the Bloody Mary in 1921 when he was working at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris that was popular with Ernest Hemingway and other American expatriates at the time.

Veterinarian-turned- writer James Rollins, on the other hand, (claims) that the Bloody Mary was invented in the Hemingway Bar at The Ritz Paris. And an ocean away, New York’s 21 Club claims that the Bloody Mary was first made there, though they do have two versions of the story.

One is that it was invented in the 1930s by a bartender named Henry Zbikiewicz, and another attributes its invention to the comedian George Jessel, who frequented the 21 Club.



And



Polar Bear Swim Day



Strip down to your bathing suit, take a few steps over the snow and ice covering the ground, and hurl your body into ice-cold water.

Sound like fun?

Well, there are plenty of people who think it does, and these people get together to to this every year! Sometimes it’s for charity and sometimes it’s just for a challenge, but either way, thousands of people worldwide take to the icy winter waters every year. These swims are understandably called “Polar Bear Swims”, and they usually take place in the sea.

The History of Polar Bear Swim Day

Polar Bear Swims have been practiced for well over a hundred years in different countries.

The first recorded Polar Bear Swim took place in Boston 1904. In many Canadian communities, plunging into icy water for a swim is a New Year’s Day tradition.

Vancouver’s annual Polar Bear Swim Club has been active since 1920 and usually has 1,000 to 2,000 registered participants every New Year’s Day, with a record 2,128 registrants taking part in the Polar Bear Swim in English Bay in 2000.

It would seem that the Netherlands have greatly outdone North America, as about 10,000 people have been diving into the icy cold sea water at Scheveningen, The Netherlands’ main beach resort town, every year since 1960.

In fact, it is estimated that all over the Netherlands, 30,000 people take part in what they call “Nieuwjaarsduik” (New Year’s dive) each and every year.

New Year’s Day is though to be the best day for this kind of swim, because as many participants have noted, after you’ve done that, no challenge the New Year could bring could possible phase you.

However, some swimming clubs organize regular winter sessions.

Plungapalooza is the largest polar bear plunge in the United States, held annually at Sandy Point State Park in Maryland. The event, that raises funds for the Special Olympics, has managed to collect millions of dollars. The largest Plungapalooza to date took place in 2008, with an estimated 12,000 people participating.