Butterbeer is just butterbeer, right?

…Wrong!

We had an absolute blast during our trip to Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure and one of the biggest highlights of the trip was spending time in the Harry Potter-themed areas of both parks: Diagon Alley in Universal Studios Florida and Hogsmeade Village in Islands of Adventure. Michael and I took a trip here in 2016 and it was so fun reliving our memories 6 years later!

Eating and drinking have always been cornerstones of our travels, as can be seen in our recent trips to New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. You know we are usually beer people (we’ve taken you on beer tours through Philly and Lancaster), but here in Orlando we focused on something a tad different: butterbeer!

Best Kinds of Butterbeer at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure

 

Cold Butterbeer

This one is the classic butterbeer everyone thinks of when they think of butterbeer at the Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure theme parks. It’s cold and butterscotch-ey, lightly carbonated, quite sweet, and topped off with a layer of delectable savory-sweet caramel foam. You can get cold butterbeer at the butterbeer streetcarts as well as at the restaurants on both sides of Harry Potter World: Diagon Alley’s Leaky Cauldron and The Hopping Pot, as well as Hogsmeade’s Three Broomsticks and Hog’s Head.

While cold butterbeer is quintessential and original and altogether still quite good, my whole group (myself included) strongly preferred the other alternative easily found at the butterbeer streetcarts…

Frozen Butterbeer

While cold butterbeer can pass for a beverage, frozen butterbeer feels more like a treat. Its blended texture is nice to savor a bit longer (for as long as you can before the Orlando sun melts it away) and the ice makes frozen butterbeer less sickly sweet than its liquid counterpart. The best part (that wondrous foam on top) is still present with frozen butterbeer and you get a spoon-tipped straw to indulge even more.

Frozen butterbeer can be found at the outdoor butterbeer carts as well as in the above-mentioned restaurants in both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley.

If they sold cups of pure butterbeer foam, I’d never leave those Harry Potter lands.

Hot Butterbeer

Hot butterbeer used to only be available during the holidays, but now appears to be a year-round offering. Hot butterbeer is a bit less effervescent but still has that yummy salted caramel foam on top. Hot butterbeer brought out even more of the sweetness and is significantly less refreshing than the frozen version, but I still prefer the hot version over the non-frozen cold butterbeers.

Hot butterbeer can be found at the sit-down restaurants in both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. It’s only a matter of time now before alcoholic hot butterbeer is available…

Butterbeer Soft Serve

Butterbeer can be found in hard ice cream as well as soft serve formats. We opted for the butterbeer flavored soft serve from Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour in Diagon Alley on the Universal Studios Florida side. Alternatively, the hard-packed ice cream version is found at various snack carts.

The butterbeer soft serve melted very quickly outdoors, but I loved the aesthetic (and the waffle cone) of the swirls of caramel streaking through the toffee flavored soft serve. It’s a generous portion and fit for two people to share.

Butterbeer Potted Cream

Potted cream is a British dessert made from milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, and gelatin. Butterbeer inspired potted cream takes this dessert to another level and makes it caramelly and savory, served in a very adorable glass Mason jar. Unfortunately, I found the butterbeer potted cream cloyingly sweet and while the flavor was pleasantly butterbeer, it was much too sugary to eat all at once and I had to nibble on it all day long instead.

Try the butterbeer potted cream at either Three Broomsticks restaurant in Hogsmeade or Leaky Cauldron restaurant in Diagon Alley.

Butterbeer Fudge

We didn’t try butterbeer fudge during our time in the Wizarding World, mostly because we feared it would be too sweet for our tastes. The bi-layered fudge is supposed to be a main layer of butterscotch-flavored topped with a layer of shortbread-flavored fudge. Find it at Hogsmeade’s Honeydukes or Diagon Alley’s Sugarplum’s Sweet Shop.