Harry Potter Party - Butterbeer

Cheers!!

Ahh Butterbeer!  You can't have a Harry Potter Party without it!  I was torn between wanting to make the recipe similar to the park (although ours would include alcohol), making it how I imagined it to taste, and making it drinkable for a wide range of people.  What we ended up with was a bit of a compromise between all three but less of how I imagine it when I read the books because I don't think I will ever come close to that without magic.

I mentioned that I was going to be trying recipes to my step-brother and his wife (Ron/Vaughn and Ginny/Ryanne) and they invited my husband (Mike) and I over to have a sample party.  I couldn't say no to that!  I searched many, MANY sites trying to plan the recipes that we would sample and finally thought I found the one that we would use.  It was simple (only included club soda and butterscotch schnapps) but knowing that we would want to sample a few I brought a variety of possible mixers to their house.  There was one recipe that I was going to stay away from because it was too detailed and I didn't have the brain capacity after all the other planning (I mean, it included using a candy thermometer...come on!).  When I got over to their house, Vaughn had made the the recipe I was trying to avoid and I ended up having to make it at the party because we altered it but still used all the parts of the recipe.

Making the whipped cream topping

The best site that I found for the recipes is Wizarding World Park.
Scroll down to the bottom and "Butterbeer Recipe #1" is the one we used - minus the cream soda (you'll see) and substitute dark rum for the rum extract (it was New Year's...we weren't wasting our time with extract).  The "brown stuff" that I refer to later is the brown sugar/butter recipe and we topped it with the whipping cream and rum and then stirred it in to make a nice frothy head.

And now...this is how we created the recipe that I made for the party...with our super special secret ingredient...

Once upon a time...sometime in November...4 people stood around an island in a kitchen sampling beverages.  It had been a long night, full of mistakes and bad horrible mixtures.  Until...

Mike: Aak this is nasty
Jess: It's too sweet
Vaughn: What if we take out the brown stuff and add only 1 shot of schnapps but added some rum...

Before the whipped cream topping

*stir*taste*sip*

Mike: This tastes like ass
Jess: Add whipped cream?
Vaughn: No, add some more schnapps
Jess: Vaughn, you're drinking out of Mike's cup
Vaughn: Which is my cup...oh who cares...
Jess: Yours is the 49er one, Mike's is this bluish one
Mike: They are all bad, let's dump them out and start over
Jess: It needs more carbonation, but not something too sweet
Ryanne: How about champagne?

At this point we'd had enough to drink to think this would actually turn out well.

*stir*taste*sip*

After the whipped cream topping

 Jess: Oh God no!
Mike: That's just not good at all

Jess and Ryanne drink some straight champagne to clear the palette.

Jess: It's still too sweet.  We need something with carbonation but we need to be able to add the schnapps and some brown stuff and not have it be too sweet.  What if...hey...guys...what if we use beer?
Ryanne: That's what I said in the beginning!!
Jess: Just...like Coors Light
Vaughn: Hang on, I have some in the garage
Jess: Shocking...
Mike: Oh I'm excited about this...

*stir*taste*sip*

Jess: This is it
Mike: This is actually good
Ryanne: And I said beer from the beginning.
Vaughn: What if we add some of the cream stuff to the top?
Jess: That's even better!

And there you have the extremely scientific way we created our recipe for Butterbeer.

Final recipe:
1 can beer
2 T "brown stuff"
1 heaping scoop whipped cream mixture
stir

The secret ingredient.