Universal – Fifty State Family

My older daughter and I are fangirls over the Harry Potter universe (and also zombies, but that’s a post for another day) and during a visit to Orlando, she and I made sure to get over to Universal Studios Orlando to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. You have to have park tickets for both Universal Studios AND Islands of Adventure in order to see all of the Harry Potter attractions (grumble), but we paid that premium and for us, it was well worth the money. We spent 9 of the 12 hours the park was open entirely in The Wizarding World. We marveled at window décor, we stared at the ceilings in the stores, we read the handbills on shop fronts. We spent a significant amount of time looking at wands in a shop that could have been straight out of the books and movies – rather the point, actually. We sat on the stairs by Gringotts and watched magical signs change, the dragon breathe fire, and the hustle and bustle of people in Diagon Alley. We did spells with the interactive wands and generally took advantage of everything the Wizarding World had to offer. Including Fishy Green Ale.

Butter Beer is the go-to flavor experience of choice among visitors to the Wizarding World. You can get it in soda form, you can get it warm, frozen, as ice-cream, as custard, and as fudge. But, if you look around, past all the hoards with their Butter Beers, you’ll see a couple of brave souls holding a cup of green liquid with blue popping bubbles in the bottom, and that is Fishy Green Ale.

Not a great picture of Fishy Green Ale, but you get the idea; a milky, mint green cold drink with blueberry popping bubbles.

The drink is described as being minty with a hint of cinnamon with blueberry juice filled bubbles that pop and release the juice in your mouth when you bite down on them. I was perplexed by the flavor profile. Mint and cinnamon? But I promise you, it’s not strongly mint, and I wouldn’t have guessed cinnamon. And of course, who can resist topping off a milky mint/cinnamon drink with a pop of blueberry surprise in your mouth? We couldn’t, that’s who. But this is definitely a drink it took us a while to decide if we liked. The evolution went a little like this:

Ugh, what?

Hmm. Let me try that again.

Is that really mint?

Gross!

Okay, maybe not that bad actually.

Come on, Rowling, who would even think this up?

Let me try that again…

Is that…blueberry?
I don’t think I like this, but I’m not sure.

I kinda like this.

I have a set of pictures featuring my daughter’s face as she struggled to process this drink, but as she is a private person and doesn’t like her picture everywhere, I have drawn a recreation below.