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Wizard’s Council: What is your favorite Wizard World treat?

By W&W Staff

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Our Wizard’s Council convenes to consider the question of the hour: What is your favorite Wizard World treat? Is there a wizarding cocktail to go with it?

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Welcome to the Wizard’s Council. Back in olden days, before the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in 1692, the Wizarding world was governed by the Wizard’s Council. This was the longest serving ruling body over the Wizarding World in history, and though it was disbanded in 1707 with the founding of the Ministry of Magic, it was still considering one of the wisest and august bodies to ever rule the UK and Irish Wizarding Worlds. (Sadly, the same cannot be said for the Ministry, which seems to only be as good as it’s current Minister.) Here at Wizards and Whatnot, we come together once again as this august body to think deeply on the issues of our time.

Philosophical Question of the Hour: What is your favorite wizarding treat? Do you have a preferred wizarding cocktail to go with it?

DAN: First of all, it needs to be pointed out that Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans are a menace. There are a lot of flavors in the world, and very few of them make for good candy. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore confirms the existence of both vomit and earwax-flavored beans. If those are around, what other horrific flavors exist? I don’t like to think about it, and I certainly don’t want to risk putting it in my mouth.

In conclusion, boycott Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans.

As for my favorite wizarding treat, I’m gonna go with Chocolate Cauldrons. What’s not to like? They’re big hunks of chocolate and they have booze inside. I would happily grow fat on them.

Several of those Harry Potter-themed cocktails look delicious, but I’m gonna have to go with the Butterbeer. It includes butter and cream–at that point, it’s not so much a drink as a milkshake, and I am completely on board with that. All that flavor will probably mask the vodka nicely, as well.

Butterbeer would go perfectly with Chocolate Cauldrons. If you’re going to destroy a diet, you might as well go all in.

KALISTRYA: I actually bought some of the Jelly Belly Every Flavor Beans for my nieces one year and recalling the looks on their faces when they hit a vomit bean really selects this “treat” as my favorite one FOR FEEDING OTHER PEOPLE. The company has gone on to make additional gross look-alike flavors to incorporate into their Beanboozled line. So when it comes to people that aren’t you, do not boycott the beans! They’re definitely a good one for kids or for adults who have shored up their bravery with a few Potter cocktails. Keep you camera and a trashcan handy though.

Onward to the Great Potterish Bake Off: As a Slytherin Team Pie person, I naturally lean toward the dark chocolate tart from my Potterlicious Pies article. Just writing that sentence makes me long for the thick and creamy chocolate filling dotted with bits of salt and pistachio. While not a drinker, I think that a Firewhiskey would be the proper liquid for a touch of burning to balance out the smooth richness of the dark chocolate.

When it comes to the Pottermore dessert chart though, I’ll admit a certain enchantment over trifle. A small name for something so English that can have so much in it. Custard! Fruit! (That makes it healthy, right?) Sponge cake! Whipped cream! You don’t even have to be neat about it because it’s just layered in a large container and looks great with very little effort. A nice bowl of trifle with an Amortentia to bring out the fruitiness would be a lovely end to any Hogwarts Great Hall feast.

For the lazy summer days when an all in one dessert and drink is what you really want to lounge around with, a butterbeer float would really hit the spot. Just make sure you have a hammock handy for the sugar crash nap afterward.

KATIE: I’m gonna level with you here, Dan—Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans truly are not to be trusted. Those things ruined my life in elementary school, completely shattered all my innocent illusions that had so naively believed in this world’s inherent goodness. It’s easy enough to avoid those flavors which should be avoided, but sometimes you can’t tell the difference between a vanilla and a horseradish until it’s too late; not to mention the “mystery” flavor (which, by the way—and there’s no way to put this delicately—could have been nothing but urine. Fight me, Jelly Belly). The allure of the occasional toasted marshmallow bean was soon trumped by an ungodly number of vomit and black pepper, and thus my tryst with Mr. Bott ended.

Cocktails are a different story entirely; mix me a good one and I’m yours forever. The phoenix feather and Felix Felicis alike are so aesthetically pleasing, and sound delicious to boot. I’d even take a shot of firewhiskey for the fun of it—and I am not a whiskey girl, but I can’t resist a drink that doubles as a sparkler.

I don’t know how Ice Mice would pair with any of these drinks, but I always regretted skipping out on those when they were sold at the (now closed) local K-Mart ten-odd years ago. Of course, I’m not sure that anything could compare to the Cauldron Cakes, which would be so much more efficient than beer and a Hershey bar.

AYESHA: I seem to be one of the few who wasn’t betrayed by Bertie Bott’s in my early days, so as for real world wizard treats it’s one of the only ones I’ve tried. I guess I like the beans for the same reason I like any of the wizard treats – because they’re fun. The novelty is half the reason to get them. I definitely wouldn’t have minded some fever fudge when I had mountains of schoolwork to do.

Taste-wise, I’d have to go with treacle fudge. It sounds like it would be incredibly sweet, and I happen to share Dan’s sentiments on eating unhealthy food – go hard or go home. I don’t think it’s the type of treat you can gorge yourself on, but that’s also part of the appeal. When you’re only allowed to have something on special occasions, it preserves the magic.

When it comes to the cocktails I’ve got to go with firewhiskey. Not only because it’s got a special place for me as Harry Potter fan, being the toast drink for Mad-Eye Moody’s death and Harry comparing kissing Ginny as ‘better than firewhiskey,’ but also because it’s the type of drink I’d want to have. I can’t resist a bit of spice and fire.

MARNIFER: Of the many sweets chronicled on that delightful infographic, Fizzing Whizbees steal my heart. They got turned into a real-life candy which I hear are basically just Pop Rocks, and unfortunately don’t make you levitate like their literary counterpart. What’s not to love about a fizzy candy that causes you to float? Just make sure you’re nowhere near Willy Wonka’s giant ceiling fan. Oops, wrong franchise!

To accompany such an effervescent sweet I have chosen an equally sparkly cocktail. Perhaps it’s the humidity talking, but I’m about to dive straight into that bowl of Amortentia Punch. The flavor profile sounds amazing. Raspberries, pomegranate, and sparkling wine — you’ve got my attention, you little minx of a cocktail! Although I’m not a gin fan, I can imagine the juniper flavor blending very well with the berries. The drink combines sex appeal and mystery; it’s sophisticated yet playful.

I don’t know that I would buy a heart-shaped bundt pan just for this purpose, but that fruit-ice heart is a damn fine garnish.

RYAN: At this very moment, I have a ziploc bag with a mixture of: regular Jelly Belly beans, Bean Boozled beans, and Bertie Bott’s Beans. I agree with Dan, ban Bertie Bott’s Beans. I regret this mixture, as they all seem to taste like the dog food flavored jelly bean now. I thought the Bertie Bott’s Beans were bad as a kid, but they have NOTHING on Bean Boozled! The sole purpose of the mixture is to eat them with friends, all suffering together.

My favorite Potter treat, well more of a drink really, is definitely a frozen butterbeer from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It hit the spot on a blazing hot Florida day last year. It’s creamy and very refreshing, perfect for walking around the parks. Pumpkin juice comes in a very close second to the frozen butterbeer. It has more of a pumpkin pie taste to it rather than pumpkin spice.

The Potter mixed drink that I have always wanted to try is Felix Felicis (Liquid Luck). As I put it in my Harry Potter cocktail article, “You can drink this without having to get a memory from a drunk professor, or do an imitation of a spider at least.” That scene is one of my favorites of the films, and the drink itself sounds delicious.

But Siriusly, Ban Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans!

KELLY: Watching that video from Pottermore made me even more depressed about how I never got my Hogwarts letter. It also made me realize how creative and what amazing attention to detail Rowling had to include SO MANY different sweets, including ones she made up. I obviously picked up a few of these Potter treats on my trip to Warner Brothers Studio Tour London last year, including Jelly Slugs, Chocolate Frogs, and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.

Did you know that the chocolate frogs are so rock hard that the cashiers actually have to warn people not to bite directly into them to because people have broken their teeth? They really were that hard, too. You have to either microwave the thing (which is A LOT BIGGER than I expected – around the size of a large toad) or shave pieces off.

So while giving my teeth a break from the chocolate frog, I decided to randomly pop a Bertie Bean into my mouth. What a horrible idea that was! The first two beans I ate were “grass” and “vomit,” which made me literally want to vomit on the grass. The other beans were nice though, aside from earwax and rotten egg…

Also at the WB studio tour, I had butterbeer! It wasn’t frozen, but was ice cold and served with whipped cream on top. It was SO SO good and will always be my go-to Potter drink – alcohol or not! I wish they bottled the stuff.

This weekend I now have the urge to play a drinking game that involves both Potter cocktails and my leftover Bertie Bott’s beans. This can be played with Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit or another Potter themed game, like Scene It. Every time you get a question wrong, you have to have a bean. Might be a good idea to drink a vial of Felix Felicis beforehand though…

Next: Warner Brothers Files Trademark for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Film

Our Wizard’s Council meets every other week, unless there is an emergency session. Check out our other entries here.

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