Just like mom’s grilled cheese martini
Peanut butter and jelly go together decently. Milk and Oreos are okay, too. But vodka martinis and grilled cheese?
Eh, what the hell. If Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher make a pair, then who are we to hate on Beecher’s Grilled Cheese Martini from the crazies over at Bennett’s Pure Food Bistro on Mercer Island?
Here’s how they do it.
Owner Kurt Dammeier and his chefs take fresh grilled cheese sandwiches and chunk them into 10 gallons of vodka. They let them soak; then they take the sandwiches out and press them through cheesecloth to extract the vodka. The vodka is then served in a martini glass with balsamic glaze along the rim. Dried prosciutto is crumbled around the edges. The rest is 1oz tomato juice, 1 frozen tomato juice ice cube, ¼ simple syrup, 3 basil leaves and 1 tomato quarter.
If you’re noticing a theme, that’d be the tomatoes. What about the grilled cheese, you ask? Well, as far as I could discern, every effort was made to cover the actual flavor of the vodka.
Having journalistic integrity, I thought it necessary to try the thing myself. It is bloody disgusting.
Considering the balsamic glaze and the prosciutto, the drink borders on palatable; yet it still tastes more like the creepy hybrid bastard spawn of a bloody Mary and a martini than it does like a grilled cheese sandwich. Still, the waiters swear it is their most popular item right now. Personally, I’ll take their Bees Knees cocktail over the grilled cheese any day. But if you've always wanted a drink that makes you crave a milk chaser, Bennett's is waiting.
Here’s how they do it.
Owner Kurt Dammeier and his chefs take fresh grilled cheese sandwiches and chunk them into 10 gallons of vodka. They let them soak; then they take the sandwiches out and press them through cheesecloth to extract the vodka. The vodka is then served in a martini glass with balsamic glaze along the rim. Dried prosciutto is crumbled around the edges. The rest is 1oz tomato juice, 1 frozen tomato juice ice cube, ¼ simple syrup, 3 basil leaves and 1 tomato quarter.
If you’re noticing a theme, that’d be the tomatoes. What about the grilled cheese, you ask? Well, as far as I could discern, every effort was made to cover the actual flavor of the vodka.
Having journalistic integrity, I thought it necessary to try the thing myself. It is bloody disgusting.
Considering the balsamic glaze and the prosciutto, the drink borders on palatable; yet it still tastes more like the creepy hybrid bastard spawn of a bloody Mary and a martini than it does like a grilled cheese sandwich. Still, the waiters swear it is their most popular item right now. Personally, I’ll take their Bees Knees cocktail over the grilled cheese any day. But if you've always wanted a drink that makes you crave a milk chaser, Bennett's is waiting.
