17 Sep 2026 Great SA tomato juice now with a kick
South African-born Marty’s launches the country’s first locally produced ready-to-drink Classic Bloody Mary with Pick n Pay Liquor.…
After almost a decade spent obsessing over tomato drinks, Marty’s has finally done the obvious thing and added vodka.
This September, the South African-born drinks brand launches Marty’s Classic Bloody Mary nationally through Pick n Pay Liquor, believed to be South Africa’s first locally produced ready-to-drink Classic Bloody Mary.
For founders and siblings Martin and Paula Raubenheimer, it’s a particularly satisfying homecoming. Marty’s started with Martin making tomato juice in his parents’ garage, using an apple hopper, a borrowed wine press and a fairly unreasonable amount of determination.
The idea had been rattling around in his head since childhood, when he’d order tomato juice while the other kids had Fanta or Grapetiser, then wonder why everyone immediately added Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and anything else they could find to make it taste better.
“I never thought tomato juice was bad,” says Martin. “I just always thought it could be so much better.” That thought eventually became Marty’s.
Since then, the independently owned family business has grown from a handful of SA stockists into thousands of stores, expanded into the UK, Namibia and the UAE, and picked up awards. These include a Great Taste Award, Double Gold at the Aurora International Taste Challenge, Silver at the World Alcohol-Free Awards and a Nourish Award.
The Classic Bloody Mary has been on the cards almost from the beginning, but getting it right took considerably longer than expected.
The first version was developed by Paula in the UK using Marty’s Virgin Bloody Mary as the base. From there, development moved between the UK, Europe and SA before renowned SA bartender Kurt Schlechter of Cause Effect Cocktail Kitchen was brought in to help fine-tune the final drink for commercial production.
The brief was simple: don’t drown it in vodka. “We wanted it to taste like a really good Bloody Mary, not tomato juice with a load of booze thrown into it,” says Martin. “The tomato still needed to shine.”
Like the rest of the Marty’s range, the Classic Bloody Mary is made without preservatives and uses ingredients including apple cider vinegar and Oryx Desert Salt.
It is deliberately lighter and less gloopy than traditional tomato drinks, with the savoury, spicy character Marty’s has become known for.
Pick n Pay partnership brings the story full circle
Years before Marty’s had a national retail presence, Pick n Pay was one of the first retailers Martin approached. The timing wasn’t right. Several years, a few countries and rather a lot of tomatoes later, the two businesses met again.
“It’s funny. We had to go halfway around the world before finally ending up back on shelves at home,” says Martin. “There’s no real precedent for this category in SA, so we think it’s incredibly cool that the Pick n Pay Liquor team has been brave enough to launch it with us.”
Source: Marty’s