I want to like them, but I’ve had too many lackluster ones, and I end up opting for screwdrivers. This excerpt from a Tribune letter captures my experiences well:
Any great recipes? Preferable for pitchers, not individual drinks. Thanks.
Vodka, a very little vermouth, no tomato juice, hold the herbs and spices, maybe add a lemon twist.
Start with good quality tomato juice, not the pre-mix bloody mary stuff in a bottle. Don’t get too heavy-handed with the tobasco and worcestershire sauces. A little fresh ground black pepper is good if you have it. Use a lime wedge in preference to lemon. I advise completely foregoing the celery sticks, green onions, olives and other salad that bartenders have been shoving in the glass lately. It’s supposed to be a cocktail, not a high fiber meal replacement. Vodka, gin, or tequila can all be used depending on your personal taste in liquor. Don’t pour that too heavy, either. When all is said and done, you should be able to taste the tomato, the liquor, the lime, and the seasonings…basically in that order.
If you can’t see through it, you didn’t make it right.
I took a sip of one that was very dark and dense in a tall narrow glass. Made with vodka, a dash of tabasco and A-1, very strong! A
Bloody Mary is not to my taste, but I could tell it was excellent in its own way. ( It came with a lime wedge and a skewer of a giant green pimento olive, a slice of pepperoni, and two red onion rings! Looked very pretty, but seems wasteful.)
Use clamato juice and call it a bloody ceasar. 
I haven’t drank alcohol for ages now, and that is one of the few drinks I miss.
My personal recipe, which most assuredly isn’t to everyone’s tastes:
V-8 juice
vodka
heavy on the Lea & Perrins
Crystal Sauce to taste
dollop prepared horseradish
freshly ground pepper
dash celery salt
squeeze of lime
Keep everything including the glasses ice cold, and don’t serve in such a large glass that it can get warm before you get it drunk. No vegetation allowed other than a couple of jalapeno-stuffed green olives on a swizzle stick. Clamato juice is an abomination in the eyes of Nuggan, and anyone who sullies the earth with such a heresy shall be cast into the Eternal Icebox (otherwise known as Canada).
My recipe involves a complicated process known as “asking my husband to make me one”, but if you can’t find him this recipe would do in a pinch.
Dood, why don’t you just stir a big spoonful of cocktail sauce into a glass of iced vodka?
Instead of the celery. I like to coat the rim of the glass with celery salt.
This sounds good to me; it’s very close to what I’d make for myself. I’m not familiar with Crystal Sauce, but I love any hot sauce. I prefer the V-8 juice, too, but any good quality tomato juice will do. Avoid “pre-mixes” like the plague! That’s really true for any drink.
A strong, spicy Bloody is the best hangover cure on earth! In fact, it will probably cure about anything that ails you.
Well, it’s both. It’s intended for Sunday brunch, after a wild Saturday night, so this may well be your first meal of the day. The best ones have a jalopeno pepper Cuisinarted beyond recognition in them somewhere.
George Jessel is credited with inventing this, although his bartender did a lot to make it palatable.
A definite time-saver, but most cocktail sauces don’t have enough horseradish. But needs must if you are in a hurry! 
I used to go to a lot of trouble, a la silenus’ recipe. Now I just buy the absolute best bloody Mary mix I’ve ever had. It has the perfect spiciness.
Be that as it may, we have delicious drinks here. 
Yeah, I have to say, the Bloody Caesar one ups the Bloody Mary, IMHO.
My recipe is straightforward: Clamato (or tomato juice spiked with fish sauce), vodka, a few dashes Worcestershire (too much and the whole damned thing tastes like Worcestershire sauce. A little goes a long way), a couple dashes Tabasco or similar hot sauce, squeeze of half a lime, lime garnish, vodka (or even tequila), celery salt, freshly ground pepper. As much as I enjoy horseradish otherwise, I just don’t like it in a bloody mary. I also also garnish it with an olive and pickled pepper, if I have some lying around. For me, this drink needs to be a balance between salt, spice, savory, sour, and alcohol.
We make this one: The Bacon Bloody
(minus all the frou-frou garnishes)
There is a link in there to the recipe for bacon-habanero insused vodka to use in the bloody mary, and it’s a must.
If you like spicy, this’ll blow yer skirt up
Remove the legs, shell, apron, and guts/gills from a steamed blue crab. Muddle the body in a glass with tomato juice. Add your usual fixings.
I found a seemingly great one here. What do you think?
The ingredient you are all missing for the perfect Bloody Mary is the blood of a virgin. Duh!