Escape to Hogwarts

My grandma always made me hot tea with honey if I had a sore throat, and for most of my life, I thought this was the perfect remedy for such a thing--until recently.

Harry Potter and I have always been close. I started reading about his life of magic, misfortune, and adventure when I was about nine or ten and I felt like I grew up right alongside him. It was sad to see the series come to a close, but that didn't stop me from rereading the books on a fairly regular basis and indulging in ABC's Harry Potter Weekend almost every time it comes on TV. Because of my slight obsession, the idea of a real life glass of Butterbeer had crossed my mind once or twice.

The idea of combining the dream of Butterbeer with the dreariness of a winter cold came to me this past week as I was complaining about my poor, poor throat and reminiscing about Grandma's special tea. I don't know how Harry Potter was brought to mind or where the idea of substituting Butterbeer for the tea came from, but suddenly it was there! And I was ecstatic.

So of course my first course of action was to Google Butterbeer recipes. I waded through a bunch of potentials until I came to a particularly helpful-looking Yahoo link: "Harry Potter Top Ten Butterbeer Recipes" (http://voices.yahoo.com/harry-potter-top-10-butterbeer-recipes-473697.html?cat=22). It seemed like a good place to start.

Naturally there are many different versions, some sweeter and some thicker, some with alcohol and some without. On top of that, the Yahoo article is especially nice in that it recognizes that there are varying levels of complexity to consider as well, and so the recipes are categorized into three groups: "Easy Recipes," "Slightly More Complex Recipes," and "Complex Recipes." Right away I decided I was going to go big, or go home; I went with the very first one under the "Complex Recipes" category.

It went a little something like this:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups milk
2 teaspoons honey
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons hot chocolate powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ounce butterscotch schnapps for adults or butterscotch syrup for kids

Directions:

1. Melt butter and honey together

2. Add milk, sugar, vanilla, and butterscotch schnapps or butterscotch

3. Microwave or heat on stovetop until warm

4. Mix in hot chocolate powder and cinnamon

5. Serve

The first attempt, much like my first foray into steak frying, was a little disastrous. After following the recipe step by step and watching the saucepan carefully, I poured my Butterbeer into a tall glass beer mug, trying to imitate Harry Potter to a tee. The result was a very warm and sweet milk mixture that was sandwiched between a thick layer of hot chocolate powder on the bottom of the glass and an even thicker layer of powdery cinnamon across the top. When I tried to taste it, I just got a mouthful of pure ground cinnamon and nearly choked; I felt like I was doing the cinnamon challenge, and that was NOT okay with my throat.

But the second time around was much, much better. After Googling how to dissolve cinnamon in milk, I found out that you simply can't. Ground cinnamon is essentially ground tree bark, and so it just won't dissolve. The answer, therefore, was to use a cinnamon stick, and my, did this do wonders! I woke up this morning prepared with a new set of ingredients, plus a cinnamon stick, my still sore throat, and a hefty hangover (a little hair of the dog, ya know?). This time, my concoction was blissful. I got all the flavor of the recipe, including frequent spicy sweet flares of cinnamon, without the thick powdery texture of the ground version. The trick is to toss a stick into the pot as the milk mixture warms. Of course, a lot of the hot chocolate powder still sunk to the bottom, as hot chocolate powder is want to do even when being used for its intended hot chocolate-making purposes. But who doesn't like to lick up the chocolaty goodness at the bottom of their empty mug anyway?

So this adventure turned out, in the end, to be a both magical and soothing recipe review. Though rough at first, I managed to work out the kinks quite nicely. I'd love to revisit this article (http://voices.yahoo.com/harry-potter-top-10-butterbeer-recipes-473697.html?cat=22) again sometime to do a proper taste test to compare all the different versions and complexities, but for now, high complexity and cinnamon sticks all the way. Let me know if you ever try one of these, or some other recipe somewhere, and tell me how it turns out!

Because we can never have too much of him....