Jono’s Great Butterbeer Experiment - Part 2

On the eve of watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 it seemed appropriate to try to revisit last year's experiment to make Butterbeer. Last time I recreated an old-fashioned recipe but it was a bit custardy and was lacking the butterscotch flavour that J. K. Rowling described. This time I just went straight for making a butterscotch syrup and mixing it with beer. (The Wizarding World of Harry Potter official recipe is a butterscotch base mixed with cream soda... not very alcoholic and sickly sweet but since they've got a million kids wanting butterbeer coming though their gates each day then that's probably a wise decision!)

Butterscotch syrup ingredients:

30g unsalted butter

100g demerara sugar

Pinch of salt

A dribble of vanilla

A grind of nutmeg

A small tub/150ml double cream

A glug of water

Recipe:

Put the ingredients apart from the cream into a pan and heat until the sugar dissolves. Pour in the cream and whisk for a few minutes until it's all nicely mixed together. Leave it to cool. (If you're impatient you can put your pan into a cold basin). Pour a few spoons worth of the syrup into a glass and pour your choice of golden/pale ale over the top (watch out - it foams!). You might need to give it a little bit of a stir to get the flavours to properly mix. After a few minutes of settling you should get the perfect drink! This is definitely a nice drink and I'm happy to imagine that if Harry Potter's world exists then this is what they'd drink. And since I'm not going to start branching into brewing Firewhisky (mostly because I don't know how I'd distil the magical "fire" part of it!) that's it from me! Enjoy!