Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and instead of (just) indulging in chocolates and candy hearts we’re tapping into our witchy side and brewing up some love potion. What type of love potion? Amortentia to be exact. That’s the most powerful love potion to all you Potterheads.
It also smells unique to each person. For example*, to Hermione it smells like freshly cut grass, new parchment and Ron Weasley’s hair**. To Harry it smells like treacle tart, broomsticks and something floral that turns out to be Ginny. Because we love “Harry Potter” we chose to embody those scents in our own love potions, aka cocktails!
*If you didn’t read this in Emma Watson as persnickety young Hermione’s voice are you even a true Potterhead?
**Yes, the footnote above just referenced the movie but this is a book blog and the author-who-shall-not-be-named revealed that it was Ron’s hair and not spearmint toothpaste as they said in the movie.
Books and Cleverness
For Hermione’s love potion we decided to make a lemongrass and ginger tea syrup to encompass both the grass and Ron’s hair (get it? ginger because he’s a redhead). I [Kellie, our cocktail queen] looked up ways to make a cocktail taste like paper…turns out that did not taste good (shocking, right?) Instead, we made the quill garnish as a nod to the parchment aspect…much tastier and quite pretty!
Hermione’s Amortentia
.75 oz lemongrass and ginger tea syrup
.75 oz lemon juice
.75 oz gin
Combine lemon juice, tea syrup and gin in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until well-chilled. Strain into a coupe. Garnish with white chocolate quill.
Lemongrass Ginger Tea Syrup
1 cup water
4 lemongrass ginger tea bags
1 cup sugar
Bring your 1 cup of water to boil on the stove. Once boiling, remove from heat and add your 4 tea bags, steep for 3-4 minutes. Remove the tea bags and add the 1 cup of sugar, place back on the heat for 2-3 minutes. Once all the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and let cool.
The tea syrup can be sealed and stored in the refrigerator for up to a month.
The Chosen One
Treacle tart, broomsticks and something floral made a much easier cocktail. To make treacle tart you have to use golden syrup (not golden corn syrup). It is pretty easy (if you are comfortable working with burning sugar) and very cheap to make (link below!) or you can purchase it here. The golden syrup is what gives treacle tart that warm nutty flavor. So we used it as the sweetener for this cocktail. For the alcohol, we chose a rye that had a lot of woodsmoke to it. There are many bourbons and ryes that have woodsmoke to them, find one you like. Then for the floral scent that turns out to be Ginny we found a wildflower bitter that worked perfectly! We went heavy with the bitters because we like that floral note and it balanced the syrup really well. To finish it off, rim and garnish it with a lemon. It brings out the lemon note from the golden syrup and complements the overall flavor of the cocktail.
Harry’s Amortentia
.75 oz golden syrup (recipe here or buy here)
2 oz bourbon or rye with a smoky flavor
Two droppers full of floral bitters
Lemon peel (we cut ours into a feather)
Combine syrup, bourbon or rye and bitters and stir. Rim the glass with lemon peel and then use peel as garnish. Some would prefer to ice this cocktail. If you do make sure to stir all of your ingredients first because the syrup will seize a little when chilled if it is not mixed first.