Good Grape Wine Company

October 17 2007

What Would a Muggle Drink?

I’ve been running crazy lately and should return to a normal five or more times a week post schedule after the weekend, but in the meantime it’s off to New York for some Harry Potter madness.

My wife, the lovely and dear Lindsay, was an English Lit. major in school, she is in book publishing and she actually considered becoming a librarian.  Her love of books runs deep.  We share an enjoyment of reading except I read magazines because my attention span taps out at about the 39 minute mark.  That aside, we’re both kind of nerdy in a hardcore reading kind of way.

Her love of all things printed word runs so deep in fact that she has read the Harry Potter series and or listened to them on book-on-tape at least three times a piece.  Yes, each book at least three times a piece.

She loves Harry Potter so much that is was actually a condition of marriage, as in: “You have to promise me that you’ll read the Harry Potter series.” This might have been shortly after she accepted the engagement ring, I don’t recall exactly.

I addition, I went to a perfectly horrible Broadway play (I didn’t have a choice) that had a very short run and starred Jim Dale, the voice author for the Harry Potter books-on-tape.

The point is she loves Harry Potter.  Her fandom might exceed my wine enthusiasm.

So, she enters a contest run by the Harry Potter publisher, Scholastic.  The prize is tickets to go to a book reading and autograph session by the Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Um, guess who won?  Alongside 999 of our closest Harry Potter fan friends; we’re heading to New York. 

I have to wear a custom made t-shirt, too.  My wife is crafty like that.  Apparently it has something to do with Quidditch, which means something if you’ve read the books. 

Now winning these tickets is well and good because I happen to love New York City, but this also puts me in a bind because I have to at least read the first book now. The reading with the author is on Friday night.  My own reading commences now.  Fortunately, the first book is geared towards kids, because I can do 300 pages of big print. 

This whole scenario led me to ask my wife if there was anything wine-related in Harry Potter.  Four minutes later I’m at my desk looking up Madame Rosmerta on the Internet.

For all other Muggles, Madame Rosemerta is the owner of The Three Broomsticks pub.  The Three Broomsticks is one of the local pubs in Hogsmeade (Hogsmeade is the village outside of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the school that young Harry Potter attends). The Three Broomsticks is known for its delicious butterbeer and they also apparently serve Mead there, as well. 

See, throw in a little tavern action and I can get down with Harry.  I do have to say, however, all of this Potter backstory stuff is a little forbidding.  But, I do have a greater appreciation now for what it’s like to be a wine layperson. Just as my wife takes this stuff as assumed knowledge, I guess I do the same with wine …

Nonetheless, in the spirit of my trip to NYC to hear a British author and billionaire (who lives in Scotland) read a kids book to me while I wear a homemade t-shirt, I thought I’d offer up a couple of recipes found on the Internet for butter beer and mead.

Please pour a glass of wine in my name on Friday at 7:00 pm.

Butterbeer (excerpted from MuggleNet)

Ingredients:
• 1 cup (8 oz) club soda or cream soda
• ½ cup (4 oz) butterscotch syrup (ice cream topping)
• ½ tablespoon butter

Directions:

Step 1: Measure butterscotch and butter into a 2 cup (16 oz) glass. Microwave on high for 1 to 1½ minutes, or until syrup is bubbly and butter is completely incorporated.

Step 2: Stir and cool for 30 seconds, then slowly mix in club soda. Mixture will fizz quite a bit.

Blackberry Mead

Source: Mead Lover’s Digest #289, 10 April 1994

Ingredients (2 gallons):

1 gallon ripe blackberries
4 1/2 lbs clover honey from Kroger (grocery)
acid blend and yeast nutrient according to package directions
Montrache wine yeast

Procedure:

Start a simple mead with 2 1/2lbs of clover honey from the grocery and enough water to make a gallon.  I used Montrache wine yeast and add yeast nutrient and acid blend according to the directions on the package.  Fermentation should stop after three weeks.  Mash berries and add mead.  Two weeks later rack the liquid off of the fruit and into a carboy.  Add another 2 lbs of honey and enough water to fill it up to 2 gallons.  Bottle a month later and age eight months.

Comments:

It turned out like a red wine with a blackberry nose and aftertaste.

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