Coffee is transfigured into dwarf’s brew, seltzer into giggle water at a new Harry Potter-inspired afternoon tea inviting New Yorkers to make their own “drinkable potions.”
“Potions” classes at the “Wizarding School of Alchemy” — an undisclosed space on the Upper West Side that copyright law forbids organizers from calling Hogwarts — will guide students in the process of brewing adult and kid-friendly concoctions from ordinary ingredients with magical names, per a new release.
Wannabe potions masters will consult recipe booklets as they mix small bottles of “mermaid scales” and “unicorn tears” under the watchful eye of a potions professor.
As for the special effects, “Some of [the drinks] are going to bubble, and some of them are going to smoke,” explained Joshua Walker, founder of the eponymous PR firm behind the event series running Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays all summer long.
Pupils should expect their professor to be as cantankerous as Harry’s own formidable instructor.
“They’re obviously based on Snape,” Walker confirmed.
To win his approval, “house points” and a prize (the lucky felix felicitis, perhaps?), students are encouraged to dress in the appropriate magical uniforms: black robes, glasses, beards and anything “chic geek.”
The two-hour-long classes, which launched June 16, convene in “the cutest, most Harry Potter-esque location” on the Upper West Side, Walker confided to amNewYork in his appropriately British accent.
Tickets for sessions at 11 a.m., 1:15 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. cost $45 and cover unlimited pots of tea and coffee, miniature sandwiches with fillings like cucumber and cream cheese, baked treats from an “Elven bakery” and, of course, unlimited potions.
Tickets for a Harry Potter-themed brunch in Manhattan in February sold out within 12 hours, said Walker, whose company has also organized brunches inspired by such popular movies as “Mean Girls,” “Clueless” and “Legally Blonde” in New York and London.
But it’s interactive cocktail experiences based on beloved books, TV shows and films that have generated the most hype in New York, which has hosted everything from an “Alice in Wonderland”-themed tea party in a double-decker bus to a “Breaking Bad”-themed cocktail bar in an RV.
