August 4, 2017 • 28 mins
Once a mere fantasy from the pages of "Harry Potter," butterbeer is now very real, very popular, and very delicious. In this new segment, we discuss the real-world history of a fictional food and its transition into reality.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Food Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbon and
I am Annie Reests and today today we're testing out
a new segment. Yeah, we're calling it fictional Foods or
in this case, fictional drinks, because we're going to be
talking about butter beer. And I guess in this case
it's a semi fictional drink. I know. That's one of
the most interesting things about this one. It's hopped from
(00:30):
the page to your mouth. It's made the transition from
fiction to reality. It's like who framed Roger Rabbit but
at beverage? Yeah, or I I said Pinocchio, like I'm
a real drink now. Yes, for those of you who
don't know, I know. Butter beer is a drink from
(00:51):
the Harry Potter series. There actually isn't much description as
the taste in the books themselves, but when asked about
the taste, author J. K. Rowling told Bona Patti magazine
in two thousand two, I made it up. I imagine
it to taste a little bit like less sickly butterscotch.
It first appeared in the third book in the series,
(01:13):
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, after Harry tries
it for the first time at the Three Broomsticks. He
describes it as the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted
and seemed to heat every bit of him from the inside.
That's a very uh, that's a lot to live up to. Yeah,
(01:35):
no wonder people are so obsessed with it, I know.
And it pops up in every book after that. It
can be served in hot hot in mugs, are cold
in bottles. They cost two sickles, which of course we
all know to be about sixty I think Mr Weasley
doesn't know about that. I think he'd have I think
it had trouble with the conversion rate. That's true. It's
(01:56):
a little bit less than than an American dollar, by
the way. Yes, and they were available for purchase at
pubs like the Three Broomsticks or the Hogshead. The book
implies you can't get them at Hogwarts, which I find
very interesting. Apart from special occasions like the Yuel Ball.
Dean and Shamus discussed buying some on the black market
post exams, and of course she could probably always count
(02:19):
on the Weasley twins took of course. Yeah. And one
of the interesting things about butter beer, and maybe why
it wasn't available at Hogwarts. Was this kind of debate
around whether or not there's an alcohol in it, Yeah,
because it's got the name beer in the name, But
no one ever says anything about whether it's alcoholic. No,
(02:42):
and the consensus seems to be that it's maybe mildly alcoholic.
It's like enough to get a house elf like winky
drunk if she for those of you that don't know,
she got very drunk a lot in the gobblet of
fire on butter beer, or like a lightweight like her money.
(03:03):
That's supposedly the joke that she had a butter beer
and got and got tipsy. Yeah. In the sixth book
Half Flood, Prince Harry wonders what Ron and her money
might do quote under the influence of butter beer. Oh yeah.
And in the sixth movie, Emma Watson, the actress who
played her Money, certainly acted tipsy after having a better beer.
(03:24):
I remember that being a bigger deal than I thought
it should have been. But anyway, I've always thought it
was more of a happy feeling that it gave you,
as opposed to being like alcohol like drunk, just like
like magical, like yeah, like it's just making you happy,
sort of like Felix flicious, which is the like potion um,
(03:45):
and that the chemistry of a house self reacted differently
to it. Perhaps I've said too much. I'm a really
big Harry Potter fan. If people haven't surmised that already,
I think you are wearing Hufflepuff colors right now. But
I'm in Griffin door a Potter more. Yeah, I'm a
I'm a Hufflepuff. Oh, I love Hufflepuff though. Oh it's
a great it's a great one to be. I'm not
(04:05):
ashamed of it. Hufflepuff pride, y'all, badge of honor. Right,
it's aun but I won't oh oh oh goodness. So
that's kind of a brief like outline of It's it's life.
It's fictional life, fictional life, but but it's actually it
could be argued. I'm not sure whether Rowling had this
(04:26):
idea or not. But um, but there is a history
of buttered beer concoctions in England, and we'll start talking
about that right after a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, thank you.
(04:50):
So so yes, there is something of a historical basis
for better beer or at least for a lightly alcoholic
beer based beverage that is creamy and spiced. And we
start this conversation with a medieval English drink called caudle
ce A U d l E. This was a drink
served warm, made with wine or beer that was gently boiled,
(05:12):
thickened with egg or cream or oatmeal, sweetened with honey
or sugar, and seasoned with stuff like a like nutmeg,
clothes and a saffron, allspice, cinnamon, mace and or ginger. Wow.
And it goes all the way back to the twelve
or thirteen hundreds and was popular up to the sixteen hundreds,
as I kind of get better brew. Um. It was
served to folks who were bedridden, sick, in childbirth, or
(05:34):
you know, kind of old. On one of the recipes
is like give this to your old dude, just your
old dude that you've got hidden in the closet. I
think it was like an old man, but the application anyway.
It was also recommended as a sleepy time drink, and
caudle is where we get the term caudle as in
(05:57):
to treat gently c O D d l E. Etymologists
think that by the six hundreds coddle that the drink
had taken on an expanded meaning of gently boiling any
kind of stuff, or the word c a u d
li had taken on this expanded meaning um, And in
eighteen fifteen Jane Austen used it in the in the
modern sense to coddle, to to treat gently, in the
(06:21):
book Emma, which was the first time that had appeared
as such in print. Yeah, you never know where an
episode will take here, I tell you, I know. Yeah,
Jane Austen is not what I thought I would be
talking about here. There was even specific drink wear for
your coddle, called coddle cups caddle cups. These looked like
tea cups, but usually had two handles, you know, the
(06:42):
better for the infirm to grip it with, and often
came with lids. Um. Classy folks had these highly decorated,
like painted gilded versions in their tea sets, of course
they did. The coddle was poeticized by Shakespeare in Henry
the Sixth, Part two, in which the rebel jack Cade
threatens to hang the Lord High Treasurer. The Lord High
(07:03):
treasure has just said that he's sick and tired of
considering the poor, and Cade says you shall have a
hemp and caudle then, and the help of hatchet zing.
Oh Shakespeare, I love you anyway. By the late fifteen hundreds,
coddle was sometimes called buttered beer due to its butter content.
(07:23):
There's a recipe in The Good Housewife's Handmaid for the Kitchen,
from which was written by a dude by the way
Um and the recipe. The recipe goes like this, And
I'm not going to do the voice, but but imagine
that I'm doing this in a very silly old English voice.
I think we can do that. Yeah, okay, all right.
(07:44):
Take three pints of beer, put five yolks of eggs
to it, strained them together, and set it in a
pewter pot to the fire, and put it to half
a pound of sugar, one pennyworth of netmegs beaten, one
pennyworth of cloves beaten, and a half a pennyworth of
ginger beat And when it is all in, take another
pewter pot and brew them together, and set it to
(08:04):
the fire again. And when it is ready to boil,
take it from the fire and put a dish of
sweet butter into it, and brew them together out of
one pot into the other. M hm, so slight tangent halfpenny.
So that is that like a that's how much you
would spend on it, That's what I'm guessing. That's the
measurement of which seems really inconvenient for translating recipes for later.
(08:31):
But but I guess you could kind of guess how
much that would be, right, like like all, this seems
like enough nutmeg clump. The end result of this beer
and egg and spicy stuff, and especially the slashing it
back and forth between different pots, the end result is
is a foamy and warm and probably tasted like like
pie spice. Basically. Um. It's sort of the boozy pumpkin
(08:52):
latte version of bulletproof coffee. If you can imagine that,
I think I can sure. And and this is essentially
the recipe that's persisted through the ages. It surged popularity
again in Victorian times and is generally related to the posset,
which is a warm milk and beer and or wine beverage. Um.
Although possets were more for for general consumption or winter
(09:13):
holiday consumption, I think that this coddle was was really
really was seen as a curative so that is possibly
where J. K. Rolling got the idea or inspiration for
butter beer. Perhaps perhaps, but either way, it did make
the leap into our world, the real world. And we'll
(09:34):
talk more about that after a quick breaker from our
sponsor and we're back. Thank you, sponsor. So, as we
said at the top, this is one thing that makes
butter beer as a fictional food very interesting. It's both
(09:56):
fictional and real. Now I don't think about it too
are ye. First and most obviously, you can buy butter
beer at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter Studios. They
have locations in Orlando, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, and at
the Harry Potter Studio tour just outside of London. I
(10:16):
will say I've been to all of those but Tokyo,
and I'm going to fix that this year. Oh my goodness,
I haven't been to any of them. I'm so far behind.
So Universal chefs, including Universal's corporate executive chef Steve Jason,
embarked on the monumental task of bringing this quote most
(10:37):
delicious drink to life. I mean, I'd be very intimidated.
In the summer of two thous eight, they visited J K.
Rolling in places that inspired Harry Potter. They asked your
questions about what it tasted like. To me, that sounds
like an awesome trip from this. They determined that the
drink should taste smooth, with the main flavors being similar
(11:00):
to that of short bread and butter scotch. Yeah. They
wanted it to resemble beer but not be alcoholic for
perhaps obvious reasons. Yeah, mostly kids. Children are sometimes fans
of the Harry Potter series, in addition to children at
heart like us. That's very kind. Thank you, we all,
(11:20):
thank you, Lauren. It also had to not contain any
allergens and or dairy so that those who had any
allergies or were lactose intolerant could enjoy it. Basically, they
wanted it to be available to everyone, and this means
that there's no butter or beer and butter beer. Yeah.
(11:43):
They also wanted it to have less calories than a
twelve ounce can of soda, and J. K. Rowling insisted
it be made with real sugar because she thought that
high fruit toose corn syrup, rightfully or not, was going
to become the next ingredients people went out of their
way to avoid. Very savvy. Yeah, pretty pretty much and
(12:04):
just f y. I of fourteen ounce serving of butter
beer has two hundred calories and twenty grams of sugar,
which which is a little bit lower. I would have
guessed way more than a can of coke. Yeah, yeah,
that does. It taste much sweeter than that. It tastes
very sweet. It is delicious. I have a recipe. I'm
going to make it so that Lauren can try. Oh awesome. Yes.
(12:28):
With all of this in mind, Jason and his team
experimented for three months, coming up with something like sixteen recipes.
The higher ups at Universal tentatively approved one of them,
and then came the real test. They had to go
get the approval of the author I know. Oh no,
(12:51):
so oh that's a less fun trip. So the team
packed up the ingredients and hopped on a flight to
Edinburgh and funny aside of cord into head of Universal
Creative Mark Woodbury. Getting through the Department of Homeland Security
was a bit of a challenge. Yeah, I can see that.
The crew rented a kitchen space from an Edinburgh hotel.
(13:12):
They whipped up the five recipes, including the executive approved one,
and they had their fingers crossed that j K. Rowling
would go for it, but then they let her sample them.
I would have been so terrified. She tried each one,
and when she arrived to the one they wanted her
to pick, she smiled and said, yes, Chef, that's it.
(13:36):
Sweet relief. Oh, I had to sweet relief. The recipe
is the culinary version of classified. They make it on site,
and only those that need to know how to make
it know how to make it. Chef Jason has said
universal quote implanted special security procedures in order to protect
(13:57):
the recipe implanted implanted. It's kind of like him or
like who knows? Who knows how deep this goes? Of course,
folks have tried to smuggle a butt of beer out
of the park to figure out what's in it, but
to their surprise, the drink loses um. It has this
(14:18):
really smooth consistency as u two parts, the phone topping
and the body, and when people take it out of
the park, they'd find that it blend together in thirty
minutes and it would become a much less palatable drink,
almost like magic when they pour it. Even there's two
steps to pouring it. You pour the liquid body and
(14:41):
then there's another like spout for the phone topping and
not allowed to order it without the foam because they
claim it's part of the experience and trademarked. Oh yeah,
and this has led to at least one petition created
by someone worried about cross contament nation when it comes
to the topping, because they guarantee there's no lacto or
(15:04):
any kind of allergen in there, but people are worried
that maybe there's kind of like when a label has
to say it's made in it in a factory that
manufactures peanuts, something like that, but to the state, they
have not any hint of the recipe or lifted. Yeah,
(15:25):
you have to get the topping, and the topping is
generally everyone's favorite part. Throw that out there. Yes, you
can order the drink hot cold, frozen, in ice cream form,
fudge form, and potted cream form. I'm partial to the
frozen one, but the ice cream is amazing. It's hugely popular.
(15:49):
It's equally as popular as they are in the books.
You might say, yeah, when the data the data on
this really blew my mind. It's insane. When the park
first opened in June two thousand ten, chef Jason said,
we found out very very quickly when we opened that
butter beer was definitely an overnight home run. Less than
(16:12):
a year later, in January two thousand and eleven, Islands
of Adventure, where the Harry Potter theme park was located,
celebrated selling its millions of butter beer less than a year,
and by December that number was five million. Oh my goodness. Yeah.
They by the way, when they hit these benchmarks, they
throw these really big parties and they give away free
(16:34):
butter beer, or at least I think it's free. I
don't know. Anyway, there's butter beer, a lot of butter
beer drinking to be had. Um and I couldn't find
any specific numbers, but according to industry pros, theme parks
probably make around thirty percent of their profits from concessions.
Huffington Post wrote that they sell tens of thousands of
(16:56):
mugs of butter beer a day. You can also get
it in these souvenir mugs out and on opening day,
thirty eight thousand people waited in line to get into
the park, and the people at the park couldn't keep
up with butter beer demands, so they rolled out. It
comes from these huge barrels they rolled it out into
(17:16):
the main street and sold it for cash only. Some
folks waited up to six hours, goodness for a butter beer.
They still thousands of them that way in the first day. Yeah,
and according to surveys conducted at the resort, it has
the highest quote guest satisfire rating. It's number one thing
(17:37):
people want to do when visiting the park order a
butter beer. Oh man. And on a personal note, the
first time I visited, the lines for butter beer were
about as long as the ones for the attractions it. Yeah,
I was like, what's happening? What was going on? Yeah?
What are they waiting for butter beer? Yeah? Wow? See
(17:58):
that's It's the thing that I've thought because I haven't
I haven't been to the park, and I was like, well,
if I go to the park, like, am I going
to get one? I don't really like sugary drinks, So like,
is it worth it if to like spend like I mean,
I'm sure it's not twenty dollars, Like however much money.
I'm sure they're expensive everything in those parks, Like is
it worth Is a soda worth seven dollars? Yes? Just
(18:20):
at least once at least um and then you can
make your own. But they've been very smart marketing it
because they protected it so well. And then you can
get it in all these different ways. So you're like, well,
I got to try the hot one, I've got to
try the friend and one, I got to try all.
I have to have the souvenir mug. Yeah, and I
don't generally like sweet drinks either. Lauren and I were
(18:41):
discussing this before, but something about it is is kind
of refreshing. It's almost like, I don't know, like that
first tip of coke has that. Yeah, it's almost like that.
I don't know. It's very good, and I would recommend
trying at least once. The price is high, but one time,
but the rewards are worth worth it. Yeah. Butter beer,
(19:03):
of course, is not the only food from the Hairy
Potter universe to have undergone this magical transition into reality
from it. Yeah, no, no no, no, You've got You've got
chocolate frogs, cauldron cakes, fever fudge, chocolate Wants, peppermint mice. Uh.
They don't move in the real world that I'm personally
aware of. And of course the notorious Bertie Bots Every
(19:24):
flavor beans oh yeah, which I've had a few experiences
with I have as well. It's kind of like playing
Russian Roulette with beans. There's there's a there's a game
that Bertie Botts has that that's it's it's not like
a full board game, but but they have these boxes
of beans that that come and come in pairs, and
(19:45):
within each pair there's one like normal flavor and one
terrifying flavor. But they look identical. Oh my gosh. So
it's like coconut or spoiled milk. You don't know until
you put it in your mouth. And it's the idea
you play with a friend and like to see who
gets the bad one. I mean that Ben Ben bowlen
(20:09):
of car stuff and stuff they don't want you to know.
And I have a live Facebook live snack related show,
which basically is our excuse to eat on camera when
I'm not doing food stuff very weird things. But of
all the very strange things that I've consumed on that show,
like a number of different preparations of insects, um canned
meat from around the world. There were some durryan pastries
(20:31):
of all of that stuff, the spoiled milk Bertie bots
every flavor being was the only thing that's ever made
me gag. Really, Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, I like spit
it out immediately. It was like, nope, so good job. Yeah,
they really did well. Awesome. I the one that got
me was horse Raddish, which is strange because I love
(20:53):
horse Raddish, But I think that amount, that concentration it
was too much. I've tried all the flavors like grass mom,
but it's a horsehod Is that really did me in. Yeah. Anyway,
anyway there, I mean, they have whole shops that's just food,
mostly like candy type things made they've brought to life.
(21:13):
That's so cute. Yeah, it's the packaging is on point
as well. They really did a good job with design.
Apart from that the totally legal, universal version, there are
a couple of real world versions of butter beer that
exists in a gray area. When I started researching butter beer,
I was almost instantly derailed by the discovery of the
(21:37):
Starbucks Secret Menu, which has a butter beer prafuccino. It's
not so much a secret menu as much as like
stuff that you can order at Starbucks, like if you
tell them how to make it, like if you go
up to a counter and like what and butter beer please.
They'll probably be like, what do you want me to
put in the cup? Sir and or madam so so yeah,
so if you want to order it, just memorize the
(21:57):
drinks ingredients and and list them for your barista because
they will put more or less anything you want into
a cup and let you drink it. Um. But but yeah,
they might not know what a butt of beer is. Um.
The Internet recommends for a better beer a cream frappuccino
bass with a couple of pumps each of caramel and
toffee nut syrup, maybe some cinnamon dulce syrup too, And
you can do the same thing with a whole milk
(22:17):
steamer as a base as well, if you want the
hot version. One of the reasons we're doing this episode
now is one, a Harry Potter Day is July one.
I don't know when you're listening to this, but a
brown but this time is when it first came out.
And also Dragon Con is coming up, which is a
big convention in Atlanta where people just up and the
whole thing. Anyway, the Starbucks in Atlanta always do nerd
(22:39):
the drinks and a couple of years ago it was
better beer. Oh cute. Yeah, that's fun. I always trying
to try them and they're always way too sweet. But
I I'm like, well, I guess I'll try this thing,
supporting my local nerd economy, right. Um. Another thing that
you can buy in the real world is Madam Ambrose's
magical Menagerie. Um. I've never run into this, but she
(23:02):
appears at conventions and sells butter beer truffles, apparently delicious,
and she says it's her number one selling product, usually
sold out in twenty minutes. Wow, yeah, all right. Yeng
Ling has a butter beer ice cream, but they maintain
it has nothing to do with Harry Potter. Absolutely nothing, no, no, no, no, no, zero, nothing,
(23:27):
not a thing. From their website quote, the butter beer
ice cream, product of yeng Ling's ice Cream Corporation is
derived from a centuries old British recipe for buttered beer
or ale, and this product name is not intended to
suggest any relationship with or sponsorship by Warner Brothers Entertainment
Incorporated and the JK Rolling Harry Potter characters or themes.
(23:50):
We're all very sure, Yeah, oh I believe you. Yingling's
president filed documents to trademark butter beer ice cream in
twenty teen, but he went on ahead without waiting for approval,
so the legal pint of Warner Brothers could and probably
will descend upon him at any minute. And yes, it's
(24:11):
the same Yengling that makes beer, the Yengling family. Yes,
that yeng Ling started an ice cream arm during prohibition. Well,
we'll see. I haven't seen their ice cream in stores,
but I think it might be. It might be a regional,
um northeastern kind of thing. If anyone's running into it, yeah,
(24:31):
let us know. Yeah, And of course you can make
it at home. On the simpler end of the butterbeer spectrum,
you pretty much just need cream, soda and butter scotch syrup.
I used to blend mine together, and then I used
to freeze it, excuse me, and then blend it. So
I'd have the frozen version, which I said is my favorite,
(24:53):
and I would go without the topping because it is complicated,
and some of the more difficult recipes involve things like
mar shmellow cream and rum extract. Speaking of room, there
are plenty of alcoholic recipes available, yes, And speaking of
marshmallow cream, that's what you usually used to make the topping. Oh,
the consistency, it's just difficult to get right. Yeah, but
(25:16):
like I said, it's most people's favorite parts, so it's
worth it's worth given a try. There's I mean, so
many recipes. If you search online you'll you'll find something. Yeah.
So that's butter beer. That's the wonderful world of butter beer. Yeah.
That's the end of our first fictional foods segment and
(25:38):
brings us to some listener Maile Yes Hannah wrote in
about our honey episodes. She says, I had a hive
in college, and the queen candy that kept my queen
in her separate vial was nothing other than a gummy bear. Yes,
that's so cute. I know it takes her quite a
while to eat her way through it, giving the beekeeper
(25:59):
and up to time to place her in the hive.
After her journey, she escapes or doesn't take to the hive,
the entire colony will follow her and you will be
a very sad, beless beekeeper. Yeah. Another fun fact. Smoking
a high works in two ways. First, it masks warning
pheromones that are released by special security bees. Second, the
(26:20):
rest of the colony thinks there's a fire. They eat
as much as the honey as they can to take
with them in case they have to evacuate the hive.
Their bellies are so full of honey they become sluggish
and can't lift their stingers. Be food commas are a
very real thing. That's that's just really sweet. I know, oh,
something we share with bees. Food commas. Also, Katie wrote
(26:45):
in response to our apple Pie episode, I recently listened
to your episode on apple Pie and felt it was
my duty as an Ohio University alumna to let you
know a tiny bit more about a man you mentioned.
Rufus Putnam might not be as legendary as Johnny Appleseed,
but he does have to college mascots named after him.
O how universities Rufus the Bobcat and Mariatta College is
(27:06):
Puttnam the Pyo m H and I would recommend searching
photos out for this because they are delightful. They really are.
I personally, I've gotten a real kick out of um
college mascots, just mascots in general. I used to edit
Step to Blow your Mind, and a fan rode into
them about how their college mascot was a pretzel. I uh,
(27:31):
I love it. That's so funny and great because I
don't know what how do you do with that? What's
you cheer? What's what kind of dances? Doesn't do that?
I don't know. It's great. So thank you so much
to both of them for writing us, and you too
can write us. Yes, we have an email at food
stuff it has toork dot com. And if you have
(27:52):
any ideas for fictional foods for future segments, yeah, nothing,
nothing's too geeky or obscure. Um. You can. You can
also send us messages on our social media sites. We're
on Twitter and Facebook at food Stuff hs W and
we're on Instagram at food Stuff. We'd love to hear
from you, and we hope that lots more good things
(28:13):
are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Food Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbon and
I am Annie Reests and today today we're testing out
a new segment. Yeah, we're calling it fictional Foods or
in this case, fictional drinks, because we're going to be
talking about butter beer. And I guess in this case
it's a semi fictional drink. I know. That's one of
the most interesting things about this one. It's hopped from
(00:30):
the page to your mouth. It's made the transition from
fiction to reality. It's like who framed Roger Rabbit but
at beverage? Yeah, or I I said Pinocchio, like I'm
a real drink now. Yes, for those of you who
don't know, I know. Butter beer is a drink from
(00:51):
the Harry Potter series. There actually isn't much description as
the taste in the books themselves, but when asked about
the taste, author J. K. Rowling told Bona Patti magazine
in two thousand two, I made it up. I imagine
it to taste a little bit like less sickly butterscotch.
It first appeared in the third book in the series,
(01:13):
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, after Harry tries
it for the first time at the Three Broomsticks. He
describes it as the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted
and seemed to heat every bit of him from the inside.
That's a very uh, that's a lot to live up to. Yeah,
(01:35):
no wonder people are so obsessed with it, I know.
And it pops up in every book after that. It
can be served in hot hot in mugs, are cold
in bottles. They cost two sickles, which of course we
all know to be about sixty I think Mr Weasley
doesn't know about that. I think he'd have I think
it had trouble with the conversion rate. That's true. It's
(01:56):
a little bit less than than an American dollar, by
the way. Yes, and they were available for purchase at
pubs like the Three Broomsticks or the Hogshead. The book
implies you can't get them at Hogwarts, which I find
very interesting. Apart from special occasions like the Yuel Ball.
Dean and Shamus discussed buying some on the black market
post exams, and of course she could probably always count
(02:19):
on the Weasley twins took of course. Yeah. And one
of the interesting things about butter beer, and maybe why
it wasn't available at Hogwarts. Was this kind of debate
around whether or not there's an alcohol in it, Yeah,
because it's got the name beer in the name, But
no one ever says anything about whether it's alcoholic. No,
(02:42):
and the consensus seems to be that it's maybe mildly alcoholic.
It's like enough to get a house elf like winky
drunk if she for those of you that don't know,
she got very drunk a lot in the gobblet of
fire on butter beer, or like a lightweight like her money.
(03:03):
That's supposedly the joke that she had a butter beer
and got and got tipsy. Yeah. In the sixth book
Half Flood, Prince Harry wonders what Ron and her money
might do quote under the influence of butter beer. Oh yeah.
And in the sixth movie, Emma Watson, the actress who
played her Money, certainly acted tipsy after having a better beer.
(03:24):
I remember that being a bigger deal than I thought
it should have been. But anyway, I've always thought it
was more of a happy feeling that it gave you,
as opposed to being like alcohol like drunk, just like
like magical, like yeah, like it's just making you happy,
sort of like Felix flicious, which is the like potion um,
(03:45):
and that the chemistry of a house self reacted differently
to it. Perhaps I've said too much. I'm a really
big Harry Potter fan. If people haven't surmised that already,
I think you are wearing Hufflepuff colors right now. But
I'm in Griffin door a Potter more. Yeah, I'm a
I'm a Hufflepuff. Oh, I love Hufflepuff though. Oh it's
a great it's a great one to be. I'm not
(04:05):
ashamed of it. Hufflepuff pride, y'all, badge of honor. Right,
it's aun but I won't oh oh oh goodness. So
that's kind of a brief like outline of It's it's life.
It's fictional life, fictional life, but but it's actually it
could be argued. I'm not sure whether Rowling had this
(04:26):
idea or not. But um, but there is a history
of buttered beer concoctions in England, and we'll start talking
about that right after a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, thank you.
(04:50):
So so yes, there is something of a historical basis
for better beer or at least for a lightly alcoholic
beer based beverage that is creamy and spiced. And we
start this conversation with a medieval English drink called caudle
ce A U d l E. This was a drink
served warm, made with wine or beer that was gently boiled,
(05:12):
thickened with egg or cream or oatmeal, sweetened with honey
or sugar, and seasoned with stuff like a like nutmeg,
clothes and a saffron, allspice, cinnamon, mace and or ginger. Wow.
And it goes all the way back to the twelve
or thirteen hundreds and was popular up to the sixteen hundreds,
as I kind of get better brew. Um. It was
served to folks who were bedridden, sick, in childbirth, or
(05:34):
you know, kind of old. On one of the recipes
is like give this to your old dude, just your
old dude that you've got hidden in the closet. I
think it was like an old man, but the application anyway.
It was also recommended as a sleepy time drink, and
caudle is where we get the term caudle as in
(05:57):
to treat gently c O D d l E. Etymologists
think that by the six hundreds coddle that the drink
had taken on an expanded meaning of gently boiling any
kind of stuff, or the word c a u d
li had taken on this expanded meaning um, And in
eighteen fifteen Jane Austen used it in the in the
modern sense to coddle, to to treat gently, in the
(06:21):
book Emma, which was the first time that had appeared
as such in print. Yeah, you never know where an
episode will take here, I tell you, I know. Yeah,
Jane Austen is not what I thought I would be
talking about here. There was even specific drink wear for
your coddle, called coddle cups caddle cups. These looked like
tea cups, but usually had two handles, you know, the
(06:42):
better for the infirm to grip it with, and often
came with lids. Um. Classy folks had these highly decorated,
like painted gilded versions in their tea sets, of course
they did. The coddle was poeticized by Shakespeare in Henry
the Sixth, Part two, in which the rebel jack Cade
threatens to hang the Lord High Treasurer. The Lord High
(07:03):
treasure has just said that he's sick and tired of
considering the poor, and Cade says you shall have a
hemp and caudle then, and the help of hatchet zing.
Oh Shakespeare, I love you anyway. By the late fifteen hundreds,
coddle was sometimes called buttered beer due to its butter content.
(07:23):
There's a recipe in The Good Housewife's Handmaid for the Kitchen,
from which was written by a dude by the way
Um and the recipe. The recipe goes like this, And
I'm not going to do the voice, but but imagine
that I'm doing this in a very silly old English voice.
I think we can do that. Yeah, okay, all right.
(07:44):
Take three pints of beer, put five yolks of eggs
to it, strained them together, and set it in a
pewter pot to the fire, and put it to half
a pound of sugar, one pennyworth of netmegs beaten, one
pennyworth of cloves beaten, and a half a pennyworth of
ginger beat And when it is all in, take another
pewter pot and brew them together, and set it to
(08:04):
the fire again. And when it is ready to boil,
take it from the fire and put a dish of
sweet butter into it, and brew them together out of
one pot into the other. M hm, so slight tangent halfpenny.
So that is that like a that's how much you
would spend on it, That's what I'm guessing. That's the
measurement of which seems really inconvenient for translating recipes for later.
(08:31):
But but I guess you could kind of guess how
much that would be, right, like like all, this seems
like enough nutmeg clump. The end result of this beer
and egg and spicy stuff, and especially the slashing it
back and forth between different pots, the end result is
is a foamy and warm and probably tasted like like
pie spice. Basically. Um. It's sort of the boozy pumpkin
(08:52):
latte version of bulletproof coffee. If you can imagine that,
I think I can sure. And and this is essentially
the recipe that's persisted through the ages. It surged popularity
again in Victorian times and is generally related to the posset,
which is a warm milk and beer and or wine beverage. Um.
Although possets were more for for general consumption or winter
(09:13):
holiday consumption, I think that this coddle was was really
really was seen as a curative so that is possibly
where J. K. Rolling got the idea or inspiration for
butter beer. Perhaps perhaps, but either way, it did make
the leap into our world, the real world. And we'll
(09:34):
talk more about that after a quick breaker from our
sponsor and we're back. Thank you, sponsor. So, as we
said at the top, this is one thing that makes
butter beer as a fictional food very interesting. It's both
(09:56):
fictional and real. Now I don't think about it too
are ye. First and most obviously, you can buy butter
beer at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter Studios. They
have locations in Orlando, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, and at
the Harry Potter Studio tour just outside of London. I
(10:16):
will say I've been to all of those but Tokyo,
and I'm going to fix that this year. Oh my goodness,
I haven't been to any of them. I'm so far behind.
So Universal chefs, including Universal's corporate executive chef Steve Jason,
embarked on the monumental task of bringing this quote most
(10:37):
delicious drink to life. I mean, I'd be very intimidated.
In the summer of two thous eight, they visited J K.
Rolling in places that inspired Harry Potter. They asked your
questions about what it tasted like. To me, that sounds
like an awesome trip from this. They determined that the
drink should taste smooth, with the main flavors being similar
(11:00):
to that of short bread and butter scotch. Yeah. They
wanted it to resemble beer but not be alcoholic for
perhaps obvious reasons. Yeah, mostly kids. Children are sometimes fans
of the Harry Potter series, in addition to children at
heart like us. That's very kind. Thank you, we all,
(11:20):
thank you, Lauren. It also had to not contain any
allergens and or dairy so that those who had any
allergies or were lactose intolerant could enjoy it. Basically, they
wanted it to be available to everyone, and this means
that there's no butter or beer and butter beer. Yeah.
(11:43):
They also wanted it to have less calories than a
twelve ounce can of soda, and J. K. Rowling insisted
it be made with real sugar because she thought that
high fruit toose corn syrup, rightfully or not, was going
to become the next ingredients people went out of their
way to avoid. Very savvy. Yeah, pretty pretty much and
(12:04):
just f y. I of fourteen ounce serving of butter
beer has two hundred calories and twenty grams of sugar,
which which is a little bit lower. I would have
guessed way more than a can of coke. Yeah, yeah,
that does. It taste much sweeter than that. It tastes
very sweet. It is delicious. I have a recipe. I'm
going to make it so that Lauren can try. Oh awesome. Yes.
(12:28):
With all of this in mind, Jason and his team
experimented for three months, coming up with something like sixteen recipes.
The higher ups at Universal tentatively approved one of them,
and then came the real test. They had to go
get the approval of the author I know. Oh no,
(12:51):
so oh that's a less fun trip. So the team
packed up the ingredients and hopped on a flight to
Edinburgh and funny aside of cord into head of Universal
Creative Mark Woodbury. Getting through the Department of Homeland Security
was a bit of a challenge. Yeah, I can see that.
The crew rented a kitchen space from an Edinburgh hotel.
(13:12):
They whipped up the five recipes, including the executive approved one,
and they had their fingers crossed that j K. Rowling
would go for it, but then they let her sample them.
I would have been so terrified. She tried each one,
and when she arrived to the one they wanted her
to pick, she smiled and said, yes, Chef, that's it.
(13:36):
Sweet relief. Oh, I had to sweet relief. The recipe
is the culinary version of classified. They make it on site,
and only those that need to know how to make
it know how to make it. Chef Jason has said
universal quote implanted special security procedures in order to protect
(13:57):
the recipe implanted implanted. It's kind of like him or
like who knows? Who knows how deep this goes? Of course,
folks have tried to smuggle a butt of beer out
of the park to figure out what's in it, but
to their surprise, the drink loses um. It has this
(14:18):
really smooth consistency as u two parts, the phone topping
and the body, and when people take it out of
the park, they'd find that it blend together in thirty
minutes and it would become a much less palatable drink,
almost like magic when they pour it. Even there's two
steps to pouring it. You pour the liquid body and
(14:41):
then there's another like spout for the phone topping and
not allowed to order it without the foam because they
claim it's part of the experience and trademarked. Oh yeah,
and this has led to at least one petition created
by someone worried about cross contament nation when it comes
to the topping, because they guarantee there's no lacto or
(15:04):
any kind of allergen in there, but people are worried
that maybe there's kind of like when a label has
to say it's made in it in a factory that
manufactures peanuts, something like that, but to the state, they
have not any hint of the recipe or lifted. Yeah,
(15:25):
you have to get the topping, and the topping is
generally everyone's favorite part. Throw that out there. Yes, you
can order the drink hot cold, frozen, in ice cream form,
fudge form, and potted cream form. I'm partial to the
frozen one, but the ice cream is amazing. It's hugely popular.
(15:49):
It's equally as popular as they are in the books.
You might say, yeah, when the data the data on
this really blew my mind. It's insane. When the park
first opened in June two thousand ten, chef Jason said,
we found out very very quickly when we opened that
butter beer was definitely an overnight home run. Less than
(16:12):
a year later, in January two thousand and eleven, Islands
of Adventure, where the Harry Potter theme park was located,
celebrated selling its millions of butter beer less than a year,
and by December that number was five million. Oh my goodness. Yeah.
They by the way, when they hit these benchmarks, they
throw these really big parties and they give away free
(16:34):
butter beer, or at least I think it's free. I
don't know. Anyway, there's butter beer, a lot of butter
beer drinking to be had. Um and I couldn't find
any specific numbers, but according to industry pros, theme parks
probably make around thirty percent of their profits from concessions.
Huffington Post wrote that they sell tens of thousands of
(16:56):
mugs of butter beer a day. You can also get
it in these souvenir mugs out and on opening day,
thirty eight thousand people waited in line to get into
the park, and the people at the park couldn't keep
up with butter beer demands, so they rolled out. It
comes from these huge barrels they rolled it out into
(17:16):
the main street and sold it for cash only. Some
folks waited up to six hours, goodness for a butter beer.
They still thousands of them that way in the first day. Yeah,
and according to surveys conducted at the resort, it has
the highest quote guest satisfire rating. It's number one thing
(17:37):
people want to do when visiting the park order a
butter beer. Oh man. And on a personal note, the
first time I visited, the lines for butter beer were
about as long as the ones for the attractions it. Yeah,
I was like, what's happening? What was going on? Yeah?
What are they waiting for butter beer? Yeah? Wow? See
(17:58):
that's It's the thing that I've thought because I haven't
I haven't been to the park, and I was like, well,
if I go to the park, like, am I going
to get one? I don't really like sugary drinks, So like,
is it worth it if to like spend like I mean,
I'm sure it's not twenty dollars, Like however much money.
I'm sure they're expensive everything in those parks, Like is
it worth Is a soda worth seven dollars? Yes? Just
(18:20):
at least once at least um and then you can
make your own. But they've been very smart marketing it
because they protected it so well. And then you can
get it in all these different ways. So you're like, well,
I got to try the hot one, I've got to
try the friend and one, I got to try all.
I have to have the souvenir mug. Yeah, and I
don't generally like sweet drinks either. Lauren and I were
(18:41):
discussing this before, but something about it is is kind
of refreshing. It's almost like, I don't know, like that
first tip of coke has that. Yeah, it's almost like that.
I don't know. It's very good, and I would recommend
trying at least once. The price is high, but one time,
but the rewards are worth worth it. Yeah. Butter beer,
(19:03):
of course, is not the only food from the Hairy
Potter universe to have undergone this magical transition into reality
from it. Yeah, no, no no, no, You've got You've got
chocolate frogs, cauldron cakes, fever fudge, chocolate Wants, peppermint mice. Uh.
They don't move in the real world that I'm personally
aware of. And of course the notorious Bertie Bots Every
(19:24):
flavor beans oh yeah, which I've had a few experiences
with I have as well. It's kind of like playing
Russian Roulette with beans. There's there's a there's a game
that Bertie Botts has that that's it's it's not like
a full board game, but but they have these boxes
of beans that that come and come in pairs, and
(19:45):
within each pair there's one like normal flavor and one
terrifying flavor. But they look identical. Oh my gosh. So
it's like coconut or spoiled milk. You don't know until
you put it in your mouth. And it's the idea
you play with a friend and like to see who
gets the bad one. I mean that Ben Ben bowlen
(20:09):
of car stuff and stuff they don't want you to know.
And I have a live Facebook live snack related show,
which basically is our excuse to eat on camera when
I'm not doing food stuff very weird things. But of
all the very strange things that I've consumed on that show,
like a number of different preparations of insects, um canned
meat from around the world. There were some durryan pastries
(20:31):
of all of that stuff, the spoiled milk Bertie bots
every flavor being was the only thing that's ever made
me gag. Really, Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, I like spit
it out immediately. It was like, nope, so good job. Yeah,
they really did well. Awesome. I the one that got
me was horse Raddish, which is strange because I love
(20:53):
horse Raddish, But I think that amount, that concentration it
was too much. I've tried all the flavors like grass mom,
but it's a horsehod Is that really did me in. Yeah. Anyway,
anyway there, I mean, they have whole shops that's just food,
mostly like candy type things made they've brought to life.
(21:13):
That's so cute. Yeah, it's the packaging is on point
as well. They really did a good job with design.
Apart from that the totally legal, universal version, there are
a couple of real world versions of butter beer that
exists in a gray area. When I started researching butter beer,
I was almost instantly derailed by the discovery of the
(21:37):
Starbucks Secret Menu, which has a butter beer prafuccino. It's
not so much a secret menu as much as like
stuff that you can order at Starbucks, like if you
tell them how to make it, like if you go
up to a counter and like what and butter beer please.
They'll probably be like, what do you want me to
put in the cup? Sir and or madam so so yeah,
so if you want to order it, just memorize the
(21:57):
drinks ingredients and and list them for your barista because
they will put more or less anything you want into
a cup and let you drink it. Um. But but yeah,
they might not know what a butt of beer is. Um.
The Internet recommends for a better beer a cream frappuccino
bass with a couple of pumps each of caramel and
toffee nut syrup, maybe some cinnamon dulce syrup too, And
you can do the same thing with a whole milk
(22:17):
steamer as a base as well, if you want the
hot version. One of the reasons we're doing this episode
now is one, a Harry Potter Day is July one.
I don't know when you're listening to this, but a
brown but this time is when it first came out.
And also Dragon Con is coming up, which is a
big convention in Atlanta where people just up and the
whole thing. Anyway, the Starbucks in Atlanta always do nerd
(22:39):
the drinks and a couple of years ago it was
better beer. Oh cute. Yeah, that's fun. I always trying
to try them and they're always way too sweet. But
I I'm like, well, I guess I'll try this thing,
supporting my local nerd economy, right. Um. Another thing that
you can buy in the real world is Madam Ambrose's
magical Menagerie. Um. I've never run into this, but she
(23:02):
appears at conventions and sells butter beer truffles, apparently delicious,
and she says it's her number one selling product, usually
sold out in twenty minutes. Wow, yeah, all right. Yeng
Ling has a butter beer ice cream, but they maintain
it has nothing to do with Harry Potter. Absolutely nothing, no, no, no, no, no, zero, nothing,
(23:27):
not a thing. From their website quote, the butter beer
ice cream, product of yeng Ling's ice Cream Corporation is
derived from a centuries old British recipe for buttered beer
or ale, and this product name is not intended to
suggest any relationship with or sponsorship by Warner Brothers Entertainment
Incorporated and the JK Rolling Harry Potter characters or themes.
(23:50):
We're all very sure, Yeah, oh I believe you. Yingling's
president filed documents to trademark butter beer ice cream in
twenty teen, but he went on ahead without waiting for approval,
so the legal pint of Warner Brothers could and probably
will descend upon him at any minute. And yes, it's
(24:11):
the same Yengling that makes beer, the Yengling family. Yes,
that yeng Ling started an ice cream arm during prohibition. Well,
we'll see. I haven't seen their ice cream in stores,
but I think it might be. It might be a regional,
um northeastern kind of thing. If anyone's running into it, yeah,
(24:31):
let us know. Yeah, And of course you can make
it at home. On the simpler end of the butterbeer spectrum,
you pretty much just need cream, soda and butter scotch syrup.
I used to blend mine together, and then I used
to freeze it, excuse me, and then blend it. So
I'd have the frozen version, which I said is my favorite,
(24:53):
and I would go without the topping because it is complicated,
and some of the more difficult recipes involve things like
mar shmellow cream and rum extract. Speaking of room, there
are plenty of alcoholic recipes available, yes, And speaking of
marshmallow cream, that's what you usually used to make the topping. Oh,
the consistency, it's just difficult to get right. Yeah, but
(25:16):
like I said, it's most people's favorite parts, so it's
worth it's worth given a try. There's I mean, so
many recipes. If you search online you'll you'll find something. Yeah.
So that's butter beer. That's the wonderful world of butter beer. Yeah.
That's the end of our first fictional foods segment and
(25:38):
brings us to some listener Maile Yes Hannah wrote in
about our honey episodes. She says, I had a hive
in college, and the queen candy that kept my queen
in her separate vial was nothing other than a gummy bear. Yes,
that's so cute. I know it takes her quite a
while to eat her way through it, giving the beekeeper
(25:59):
and up to time to place her in the hive.
After her journey, she escapes or doesn't take to the hive,
the entire colony will follow her and you will be
a very sad, beless beekeeper. Yeah. Another fun fact. Smoking
a high works in two ways. First, it masks warning
pheromones that are released by special security bees. Second, the
(26:20):
rest of the colony thinks there's a fire. They eat
as much as the honey as they can to take
with them in case they have to evacuate the hive.
Their bellies are so full of honey they become sluggish
and can't lift their stingers. Be food commas are a
very real thing. That's that's just really sweet. I know, oh,
something we share with bees. Food commas. Also, Katie wrote
(26:45):
in response to our apple Pie episode, I recently listened
to your episode on apple Pie and felt it was
my duty as an Ohio University alumna to let you
know a tiny bit more about a man you mentioned.
Rufus Putnam might not be as legendary as Johnny Appleseed,
but he does have to college mascots named after him.
O how universities Rufus the Bobcat and Mariatta College is
(27:06):
Puttnam the Pyo m H and I would recommend searching
photos out for this because they are delightful. They really are.
I personally, I've gotten a real kick out of um
college mascots, just mascots in general. I used to edit
Step to Blow your Mind, and a fan rode into
them about how their college mascot was a pretzel. I uh,
(27:31):
I love it. That's so funny and great because I
don't know what how do you do with that? What's
you cheer? What's what kind of dances? Doesn't do that?
I don't know. It's great. So thank you so much
to both of them for writing us, and you too
can write us. Yes, we have an email at food
stuff it has toork dot com. And if you have
(27:52):
any ideas for fictional foods for future segments, yeah, nothing,
nothing's too geeky or obscure. Um. You can. You can
also send us messages on our social media sites. We're
on Twitter and Facebook at food Stuff hs W and
we're on Instagram at food Stuff. We'd love to hear
from you, and we hope that lots more good things
(28:13):
are coming your way.
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Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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