Harry Potter Themed Drinks: Butterbeer, Polyjuice Potion and a Cocktail for Each House
Our candles, striped scarves and potion-looking bottles all come out the same week, right about when the leaves start going. We’ve thrown a wizarding party around now for a few years running. Somebody always comes in a homemade robe, and somebody always asks what’s in the cauldron.
This is a fan menu, not anything official. It borrows the school colors and a few famous drinks, and every recipe comes from our database. When a house comes up a bottle short, we search Cocktail Builder by whatever is already in the cupboard. We sort the table by house, so guests can drink their colors or switch allegiance after the second round.
Butterbeer first
Nothing on the table goes faster. The easiest grown-up version is our Butterbeer: one ounce of butterscotch schnapps stirred into eight ounces of cream soda. It tastes like a warm butterscotch candy melted into vanilla fizz, and the alcohol barely shows. We pour it into heavy glass mugs and spoon a cap of whipped cream on top.
Root beer makes a darker, spicier mug. Beck’s Butter Beer is eleven ounces of root beer with an ounce of DeKuyper Buttershots. The wintergreen and sassafras notes in the root beer make it feel more like a pub drink.
Butterbeer #2 is the one to watch. It’s half a pint of root beer and half a pint of butterscotch-vanilla liqueur over ice. That’s a lot of liqueur in one glass, so we pour it into small cups and let people share.
Butterbeer for the kids and the drivers
Younger witches and wizards deserve a mug too, and so does anyone skipping alcohol. We make ours like this:
- Fill a mug about three-quarters with cold cream soda.
- Stir in a spoonful of butterscotch ice cream topping and a tiny pinch of salt.
- Top with whipped cream and a drizzle more of the topping.
It foams up like the real thing, and nobody at the kids’ end feels left out. Our Halloween mocktails have a few more alcohol-free ideas for the same table.
Red and gold
Gold liqueur and red fruit carry this table. The Red Lion is two parts gin and two parts Grand Marnier with one part each orange and lemon juice, shaken and strained into a highball with a sugared rim. The orange liqueur gives it a deep amber-gold glow under candlelight.
For a fiery bird on the bar, the Phoenix stirs gold tequila, orange juice, blue curaçao and grenadine over ice. Stirred together those colors land somewhere murky, so we lean on the garnish the recipe suggests: a small red or orange feather tucked against the rim. Dragon fans get Dragon’s Blood, which is Aftershock cinnamon schnapps, Absolut and club soda in a twelve-ounce glass. With four ounces of schnapps in the glass, two people can comfortably share one, and the cinnamon heat lingers on the lips.
Green and silver
We like this end of the table to sparkle. The Green Dragon Cocktail is four ounces of Champagne with an ounce of Midori, finished with a green cherry. In a tall flute it glows a cool, bright green, and the bubbles catch the light like silver.
Our Cognac drinkers head straight for the French Green Dragon, an ounce and a half each of Cognac and green Chartreuse over ice in the shaker. That’s three ounces of strong, herbal liquor, so we halve it and save it for late in the evening. The daring get the Snakebite #2, vodka layered over green Chartreuse with a couple of drops of Tabasco sinking through.
Blue and bronze
Our prettiest glass of the night lives here. In the Eagle’s Dream, gin, crème de violette, lemon and egg white meet a little sugar. We dry shake it first, then shake again with ice. It pours into a coupe as a soft lavender-blue with a silky white foam.
For an unmistakable blue, the Blue Dragon is one part blue curaçao to three parts Absolut Mandrin. It looks like a midnight sky in a martini glass. The bronze half of the color scheme goes to the Raven Stag, a stirred drink of Cognac, Cynar, sweet vermouth and a quarter ounce of Fernet. Dark copper and pleasantly bitter, it’s the drink our bookish friends nurse for an hour.
Yellow and black
Somehow this always ends up the busiest corner of the room. For the Gold Wizard, banana liqueur, Chardonnay and vodka go into the shaker, and a cherry waits in the bottom of the glass. The color is sunny yellow, and the flavor is somewhere between banana bread and a glass of white wine.
The herbal option is the Dandelion, with dry vermouth, yellow and green Chartreuse and a little Malört, stirred and garnished with orange peel. Pale gold in the glass, it smells like a greenhouse after rain. For the black half, the Black Magic is Stolichnaya and coffee liqueur with a squeeze of lemon, served over cracked ice. The lemon keeps the coffee from tasting too sweet.
A potion for the brave
The Polyjuice Potion is built in layers like a science project. Kahlua goes in first, then vodka, amaretto and more coffee liqueur, finished with a splash of Coca-Cola so the top fizzes. Guests give it a stir themselves, and then it tastes like a boozy almond iced coffee. That’s well over four ounces of liquor, so we serve it in tiny vials and split each batch three or four ways.
Setting the table
We hand out house cards at the door, drawn from a hat, and every guest starts at their house’s drinks. A punch bowl in the middle saves the hosts a lot of shaking. Our Halloween party punch recipes take a gold or green tint without fuss, the same trick that colored the swamp bowl on our Shrek themed drinks menu.
By midnight the cards have been traded so many times that nobody remembers their house. Someone in a scarf of the wrong color is usually asking for one more butterbeer.
Last modified on October 19, 2026
