Martini Designed to Taste Like a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Nothing hits the spot quite like a grilled cheese sandwich with a bowl of tomato soup. But it's been hard to get sloshed on this combination...until now. Clive's, a bar in Victoria, British Columbia, offers a cocktail called a "Cold Night In" that blends these flavors with alcohol. Here's how bartender Shawn Sole makes one:

Soole starts with his own batch of “grilled cheese rum” — dark, viscous Mt. Gay “washed” overnight with a real-live grilled cheese sandwich, a seeping process to extract essential flavors and infuse them into the rum, before adding fresh-muddled tomato and basil, salt, Lillet Blanc and Glenfiddich Scotch whiskey. The effect is extraordinary: the grilled cheese rum leaps off the palate with flavors of cheddar, bread and butter, mingled with a dark sweetness, while the Lillet Blanc prevents the texture from veering into Bloody Mary territory. Topping the cocktail off with a drop of Glenfiddich adds a hint of off-the-grill smoke and evokes sipping, grilling and dunking.

Link via Althouse | Photo: Shawn Soole