The best fictional worlds make us want to live inside them. They feel alive and give us the desire to want to experience all the things that the characters we love experience. This is one of the great things about theme parks and similar locations, as they create those worlds for us to inhabit. If you're a fan of Harry Potter you can, normally, go to Universal Studios, in either Hollywood or Florida, and get yourself a real glass of butterbeer just like Harry, Ron, and Hermione. But now, you don't even halve to do that, as long as you live in the U.K.
Butterbeer has been a drink that's actually available at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the Universal theme parks, but bottles of the stuff are now available online for purchase through the online shop of the Warner Bros. Studio Tour in London, where many of the original Harry Potter movie sets are available for guests to tour. The only problem is that you can only purchase three bottles of the butterbeer at once, and also that there is no option for international shipping, so you have to live in the U.K, to get the stuff.
It's not clear if the butterbeer you can get here is the recipe that's available at the Universal theme parks, because that recipe isn't public knowledge. However, the order page for these butterbeer bottles does include the ingredient list, so if you're willing to experiment, perhaps you can figure out how to make your own butterbeer.
Ingredients: carbonated water, sugar, glucose syrup, pear juice concentrate, natural flavours, acid (lactic acid), fermented ginger root extract (water, glucose syrup, ginger root, pear juice concentrate, yeast), concentrate (apple, carrot, hibiscus), quillaia extract.
I mean, international shipping on three glass bottles will probably run you about as much if not more than the $23 that the bottles themselves would cost. And of course, with the fact that we're talking about glass bottles, there's at least the possibility they wouldn't survive the trip. Still, if international shipping was available I'd probably buy a set just to see how it tastes.
Whether a glass of butterbeer makes you feel like you're at Hogsmeade or just makes you feel like you're at Universal Studios, there are probably a lot of people who could use that feeling. Some may want to feel like they're inside their favorite film series, others just want to be able to visit a theme park again. While Universal Orlando Resort is open to the public now, it's only allowing in a fraction of its normal capacity, and many might otherwise plan a trip to the park right now are clearly not comfortable doing so under these circumstances. Universal Studios Hollywood remains closed and there's little indication when it will reopening.
