My perfect Valentine’s Day was spent with a fake British accent
It was a discovery too outstanding to pass up: Magical potions class in New York City. Couple that with day-drinking, window-shopping and theater-going with two of my favorite gentlemen, and you have a nearly perfect vacation.
In mid-January of last year, I impulsively booked myself a solo trip to New York City. I was single and I was tired of waiting for a special someone to come along and whisk me away on a romantic vacation. I saw that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was hosting “House Nights,” offering discounts and bonus entertainment for each of the Hogwarts allegiances. Without thinking, I bought myself Hufflepuff night tickets for February 13 and 14. I was going to live life to the fullest whether I had a man by my side or not.
Three days after I booked my tickets, I met Alex. The universe is funny like that. You make peace with being single, and then you meet someone and fall in love. Go figure.
If you’re doing the math in your head right now, the answer is yes: Alex and I had been dating for less than a month when we flew to New York City together to spend Valentine’s Day seeing a Harry Potter show. Yikes. It’s a good thing we’re still together and in love, because there are a few scenarios where I end up getting super murdered in Manhattan by stranger danger.
Chris and I met in line for Star Wars Celebration Orlando in 2017 and he’s been one of my closest friends ever since. Getting his approval of Alex was a big deal for me.
Step One: Add a dash of Chris
The icing on the nerdy cake is that my dear friend Chris was already planning on trekking up from Philadelphia to accompany me to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I’d suspected that Alex and Chris would get along because they’re practically the same person, so I set out on an elaborate plan to make them tumble into a Valentine’s Day bromance. It worked. I basically ended up spending the weekend with two of the same person.
Chris met us at bougie hostel in midtown on the first night and we hit the ground running. The Part One of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was exactly what we thought it would be: beautiful and impressive and frustrating and hollow. The next morning, we woke up to Valentine’s Day in The Big Apple. New York City was not ready for our shenanigans.
You know when Harry Potter and Cho Chang go on their awkward date to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop in Hogsmeade? That environment was plucked from my mind and recreated in exacting detail at The Cauldron for Valentine’s Day. Utterly perfect.
Step Two: Pour in alcohol and stir the cauldron
I’d planned several noteworthy activities during our whirlwind long weekend: theater, museums, restaurants, shopping – you name it. But the thing I was most excited about was a Magical Potions Class at The Cauldron Pub. Do you know why, bebes? Because DANI LOVES THEMED FOOD AND BEVERAGE. We were smack-dab in the middle of Harry Potter theater nights, so a magical cocktail class in a themed magic bar was only fitting. Thankfully, I chose two of the most perfect humans to accompany me.
We arrived right on schedule to The Cauldron Pub, a fantasy-themed bar and restaurant situated on a quaint cobblestone street in the Financial District. The potions experience at the time promised three beverages of your choice: an intro cocktail and two magical potions that you concoct with your group. We didn’t quite know what to expect, but when they asked us to put on black sorcerer robes and a magic wand after we’d checked-in, we knew we were in for a treat.
The dozen or so people in our potions class were giddily ushered upstairs to an area of where some faux animal heads are mounted on the wall. After a brief and wonderfully dramatic history of these magical creatures, we were told that they dispensed a variety of spiked and non-alcoholic concoctions. One by one, we held up our wands to their snoots and they dribbled booze out of their little mouth hoses. Incredible. I had a rum-based cocktail from a unicorn with a strong strawberry-basil vibe. It was so sweet and fruity that I didn’t realize how potent it was, and by the time that we we’re potion-making, everyone was a little toasty.
Our trio’s magical platform and shared magic wand. Ready to begin a’brewing.
Step Three: Use a mortar and pestle to grind out a British accent
Maybe it was because we’d just come from having beer at McSorley’s Old Ale House. Maybe it was because unicorn mouth juice is a powerful hallucinogen. But when our cauldron’s professor plunked a wooden crate of components down for Chris, Alex and me, we promptly decided that British accents á la Hogwarts was our best course of action. And so, much to the delight/dismay of those around us, we got fully into character and began to brew up the most authentic experience we believed possible.
At the time, the experience was held in an upstairs section of the restaurant with big workspaces and lots of cozy, fantastical décor. We were seated around a table with another couple, but each group was given their own wand to share and their own magical platform that interacted with that wand. It was a cute themed contraption that looked like a fairy house. If you held your wand to certain buttons, the crystal ball would light up or twinkle. There was even a platform to set a cocktail on to bring it to life. Very magic-meets-science.
At the outset, we were asked to choose two cocktail recipes they were offering seasonally. I appreciated that there were a variety of spirit bases - I think that day there was a gin-based cocktail and two rum-based cocktails. For each, our professor brought all the ingredients, equipment and serving vessels for our group of three.
The stunningly themed crates and equipment delivered to each group before they begin brewing their potion. This was for Botany Brew, a gin-and-citrus cocktail made in a cauldron.
We settled on Botany Brew and Thyme Turner. Botany Brew was a cauldron drink, with the kind of frustratingly specific instructions that got Harry those stink-eye looks from Snape. “Stir six times, counterclockwise, stirring clockwise once for every three stirs.” Stuff like that. Would it have affected our final cocktail? Probably not. But it was deliciously in-story and I loved the details. At times we had to grind herbs with a mortar and pestle and add pipettes of tinctures, all while maintaining these ridiculous British accents as our sobriety slipped away. Botany Brew was an herbal, citrus cocktail with zippy gin and amaro. The Cauldron had us serve it in curvy cordial glasses. It was a handsome, tasty little cocktail.
When it came time for the Thyme Turner, we were given everything we needed to concoct a highly-technical toddy. It was one of the most interesting cocktail experiences I’ve ever seen.
Step Four: Just try to keep it classy at this point
Unicorn spit-tini and Botany Brew fueling the rising euphoria of our group, we were ready to graduate to our Potions Class final exam: The Thyme Turner. This one was a legit chemistry class set-up, heating liquids so they move from one chamber into another. (A chamber of secrets, if you will.) Our very patient professor helped us every step of the way as we simmered water with cinnamon sticks, citrus peels and an enchanted tea satchel over open flame, watching it move from the base container into the top container like some sort of gravity magic. It felt very technically impressive and smelled divine. At the end, we spiked the brew with dark rum and served it with very cool dry-ice cylinders. The Instagram caption over my Thyme Turner story reads “Guys, you know I’m good at cocktails. This was the single greatest drinking experience of my life.” The drink was complex and spicy, like the love child of a tiki drink and a toddy. Plus, bad British accents and magic wands make everything taste better.
Our potions class wound down and we thanked our professor profusely. Then we realized that we should probably get some food in our tummies before we rolled to Cursed Child Part 2. The staff was very sweet and managed to squeeze us into a table at The Cauldron despite a busy night of Valentine’s Day bookings. We abandoned our British accents for the comfort of New York City trappings. And that is where we embarked on the final chapter of Cauldron mayhem: people-watching during V-day. Over burgers and wings and another round of cocktails (The Cauldron’s World famous Pot of Tea: rums, passion fruit, lime, demerara), we watched a couple seated at the patio go through some very dramatic twists in their relationship. They were dressed formally and carried flowers. Full-on Valentine’s Day. At one point we think they broke up, they cried, they got back together, and they maybe got engaged? I only share this because despite the fact that we were very tipsy, we all agreed that if they salvaged this relationship and kissed, we would do a shot. They kissed. We did Bubbly Shots of Death (lemon, simple syrup, midori, vodka, dry ice). People-watching in New York City is exceptional.
Just outside that window, beyond Alex and Chris on their cell phones and past the pot of boozy tea, there is a couple going through some real relationship ups-and-downs. The very finest caliber of people watching.
Thankful for reliable public transportation, we managed to gather our wits about us. We took the subway back to midtown, got dressed in our fancy theater clothes and managed to take our seats in the Lyric Theater just as the lights went down. It was the most chaotic and wonderful Valentine’s Day I’ll ever experience.
Recently, the view from our quarantined studio apartment has me extra nostalgic for the simpler times. You know, when you could travel across the country, share a table with strangers and mix up several batches of magical booze while doing your best Cockney accent. Those were the days.
I’m thrilled to see that The Cauldron is still brewing socially-distanced Potions Experiences in New York City, and if you have the opportunity to check them out, I can’t speak highly enough about this establishment. From attentive service in beautifully themed environments to tasty and creative cocktails, this is one vacation booking that I’ll be talking about for a long time. The world needs more magic these days, and I’m so glad that places like The Cauldron exist for us adults who aren’t afraid to keep playing pretend. 11/10. Would recommend.