The class starts with a touch of a wand: the lights are turned on and an alchemy session begins where juices, herbs, alcohol and a cauldron are the ingredients of the new star drink of New York: the potion.
For a few months, the Big Apple has become the mecca of magic in the style of Harry Potter and the play of the wizard apprentice on Broadway, “The cursed legacy”, is added a couple of venues that they negotiate with these “supernatural” filters and that they destroy in the city of skyscrapers.
The potions lesson features Leo as a teacher, who, dressed in a robe, crushes herbs in a mortar and mixes infusions that change color before our eyes or pours liquids into bubbling cauldrons that fill the table with white smoke.
The Cauldron (El Caldero) is an old brewery a few meters from the New York Stock Exchange, although here the suit and briefcase give way to the tunic and wand. While it is not a place entirely inspired by Harry Potter, Efe are responsible, the atmosphere is reminiscent of the novels and films of the young man with the scar in the form of lightning.
“I think the greatest attraction is, being an adult, acting like a child again Interacting with your potions master, mixing these potions that make fun things like changing color, smoking or bubbling,” explains the local manager, Simon Dean, who adds: “And, of course, as an adult, have a couple of cocktails, which is always fun.”
In its catalog, drinks with suggestive names such as “the tonic of transformation”, “the last time” or “breath of the dragon”. All of them, elaborated by the pupils that attend the classes: “People love it, you give them a wand and a tunic and they adore it”, smiles Leo.
The sessions, of almost two hours, have a cost of about $ 50 per entry, although the bar at the bottom of the premises also has some of these drinks available. Without the part of doing them yourself, of course.
The potions, of course, in New York are not limited to those of legal age or with a taste for alcohol. In “Steamy Hallows” (The Smoky Relics, a pun on the seventh book of the “potteric” saga) there are no age limits.
This small shop, located at number 514 and three rooms east of Sixth Street, in the New York East Village, offers sparkling “butter beers” or “love filters” … and everything coffee-based.
The head of Steamy Hallows, Tim O’Grady, says that the most difficult part of establishing this place was “being able to enter all the references” to the saga in such a small space, where only ten people can stand, although his partners and he already have experience in setting up themed bars, be it Harry Potter or Austin Powers.
Under the starry black roof, from which hang keys and brooms, Gina tastes her “love filter” – a latte coffee with raspberry extract, rose water, chocolate and an edible purple glitter above – “Ummm, what good”.
“This is my first time here, I saw it on Instagram, I’m a big fan of Harry Potter”, explains this young woman who works in a bar near the cafeteria and, before coming at 10 in the morning, decides to take a dose Daily caffeine and fantasy.
“I’m a big fan of Harry Potter” -shows his outfit, a Ravenclaw T-shirt, one of the four houses of Hogwarts, the wizard school-, “I go twice a year with my wife to the theme park in Florida so. .. had to come “, ditch, while still enjoying his potion.
