Witches’ brew: Harry Potter fans love park’s frothy beverage

Park guests Jillian Woodworth, left, and Steven Hopke try Butterbeer on June 18 at the grand opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando theme park.

Make your own butterbeer

No need to travel to Hogsmeade (or to Universal Orlando) to get a taste of Harry Potter’s butterbeer. Universal isn’t giving out its recipe, but we’ve created an easy version of the formerly fictional drink made famous by the young wizard.

Start to finish: 1 hour (10 minutes active)

Servings: 4

1 cup light or dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons water

6 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

3/4 cup heavy cream, divided

1/2 teaspoon rum extract

Four 12-ounce bottles cream soda

In a small saucepan over medium, combine the brown sugar and water. Bring to a gentle boil and cook, stirring often, until the mixture reads 240 F on a candy thermometer.

Stir in the butter, salt, vinegar and 1/4 heavy cream. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Once the mixture has cooled, stir in the rum extract.

In a medium bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar mixture and the remaining 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Use an electric mixer to beat until just thickened, but not completely whipped, about 2 to 3 minutes.

To serve, divide the brown sugar mixture between 4 tall glasses (about 1/4 cup for each glass). Add 1/4 cup of cream soda to each glass, then stir to combine. Fill each glass nearly to the top with additional cream soda, then spoon the whipped topping over each.

Got butterbeer?

Harry Potter fans are all abuzz about butterbeer, and they’ve got the foamy mustaches to prove it.

The cold and creamy, frothy drink is the most popular food item at the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando, according to Universal spokesman Tom Schroder, with visitors lining up to try it.

“Then they would walk around and have this mustache on,” said Sabrina Sampson, 11, of Richmond, Va., who described the drink as tasting “like cream soda. It was somewhat thick, and it was really sweet, and then it got salty as you swallowed it, like butterscotch.”

Schroder said that about half the visitors to The Wizarding World sample butterbeer. “There may be no bigger product launch smash this year than butterbeer,” WalletPop.com said.

“It’s interesting that one small thing they can sell for a few dollars is getting as much attention as the rides,” said Gabe Travers, who reviewed the park for WESH.com, the NBC affiliate in the Orlando area.

Immediately after The Wizarding World’s June 18 opening, butterbeer was one of the most searched-for terms on the Internet. A butterbeer recipe on MuggleNet.com got 3,445 hits when the park opened, up from an average 350 daily views before the opening, according to MuggleNet.com spokesman Andrew Sims. Now the recipe is averaging 1,200 daily views.

Even DISboards.com, a site for fans of Disney World, has a separate thread for comments related to Universal’s butterbeer.

Universal would not release its butterbeer recipe, but press materials describe the drink as “reminiscent of shortbread and butterscotch.”

In the Harry Potter books, butterbeer appears to have an inebriating effect, and some older online recipes include butterscotch schnapps, but the Universal version is nonalcoholic.

In Bon Appetit’s January 2002 issue, author J.K. Rowling was asked what butterbeer tastes like, and she said: “I made it up. I imagine it to taste a little bit like less sickly butterscotch.”

The version sold at The Wizarding World was tasted and approved by Rowling herself.