Host a Fondue and Clue Themed Night

We have another fun themed night on the blog today! While we’re all trying to survive isolation and quarantine, these theme nights are really getting us through. This weekend, we had a “Fondue and Clue” night. My little sister led the charge on this event. She wrote an entire murder mystery backstory, set up different props and evidence throughout the house, and made a life size clue game for us to play.

We all dressed up as different characters from the game. Honestly, the more people commit to the theme, the more fun an event is. So we went full out on our costumes.

We began the evening with fondue. Honestly, we chose fondue for dinner because it rhymes with clue. For fondue, I always recommend two pots: melted cheese and oil. If you want to do a dessert pot with chocolate, that’s always a nice touch as well. I highly recommend an electric fondue pot over a pot that requires Sterno. It’s less smoke and fumes. My mom and I both have this pot. Fondue is also fun for Clue Night because each character can have the colored fondue fork that matches their character: Miss Scarlet gets red, Colonel Mustard gets yellow, Professor Plum gets purple, etc.

For a cheese fondue, you can use melt Swiss and mild cheddar cheese. You can also add a can of beer for extra flavor. I recommend melting on the stove before pouring into your pot. There are many things you can use to dip into a cheese fondue pot. Some favorites are sliced apples, cubed bread, roasted Brussels sprouts, and broccoli.

For an oil fondue, you can dip chicken, sirloin steak, shrimp, vegetables, cubed cheese, and more. Make sure not to dip too many meat pieces in the oil at the same time because it will decrease the temperature of the oil. So take turns with two at a time. Cut your pieces of meat and seafood to make sure they are cooked through. As an extra treat, you can dip your cooked pieces of meat into the cheese.

Sauces are always a treat with fondue too. Think about providing steak sauce, horseradish, remoulade and teriyaki. You can give your sauces fun names for clue night.

We watched the 1985 “Clue” movie on Amazon Prime while we did fondue.

Following dinner, we did the life size Clue game. My sister set up the game by using the rooms in our house. We each got a notebook with the classic Clue list. These were a blown up version of the kind that come with the board game. She printed them from the internet.

To play the game:
1. At the beginning of each round, we drew a “room card.”
2. Each character would then go to the room on the card. We did 7 rooms.
3. Then each character has five minutes to search for the clue envelope in the room. They were hidden by the game master each round and were never in the same place twice.
4. The clue envelope had 2 or 3 cards from the actual clue board game. Mark off the cards in the envelope on your Clue card.
5. Then return your room card and clue envelope to the game master for her to re-hide.
6. If you draw a room card for a room you have already visited, you draw a confidential card. These include things like blackmail: choose another player to give you a clue; friendly wager: bet another player that you will find your clue before they find theirs, if you do then they can’t look at one of the cards in their envelope; barter: each player exchanges a clue, etc.
7. Keep playing until someone is able to make a guess.
8. The game master will check the final envelope to see if they are correct. If they are, the game is over and they have won. If they are wrong, continue playing.

To make the game even more fun, props and decorations are a huge addition. Think evidence, a taped body outline, weapons from the game. My sister used a crayon to melt fake blood on the clues and final confidential file. We also brought back out our gold Halloween skeleton George for the game.

It was honestly such a fun night! These themed nights have been something to look forward to during quarantine. Please let me know if you have any questions on the specifics of this night. I would be more than happy to give information!