I used two pots for my witch's brew. One pot was for homemade root beer. The other for a snack mix. Depending on the size of the group of your party will determine how much to make and how big the pot will need to be. We have a large family so we make quite a bit of root beer. We doubled the recipe. Here's what you need to make it:
- Big witch pot to make brew in.
- Root beer extract (2 oz. bottle)
- 6 cups white sugar
- 3 1/2 gallons warm water
- 4 lbs. dry ice
Next you add the root beer extract and tell the kids that it's something else. I think I said that it was bat juice or something like that. We also had some potion bottles that we bought at the craft store and put potion labels on them (you can find them online). We added food coloring to the water so it looked like strange ingredients. One label said it was truth serum. This was great. The kids were loving it.
I am not an actress by ANY means, but I love kids and I love Halloween so I try to add as much as I can to this little presentation. Add little things to make it more interesting and to keep their attention. After each ingredient I would stir the pot and have them say the magic words with me.
After everything is mixed together I add the dry ice. Be sure to use gloves to protect your hands. DO NOT touch the dry ice it will burn your skin. This should go without saying, but if you've never used dry ice you may not know how dangerous it is. This is the best part of the presentation. I tell the kids that to activate the potion the final ingredient is compressed spirits. As I add the spirits (dry ice) I tell the kids that once it touches the potion the spirits are released. Now, if you have kids that scare easily I would make it as light as you can. Last year we had one little boy who would not come near me or the root beer and was terrified. I felt so bad. This year I tried to keep it as light as I could without making it a scary thing. It went over much better.
As you carefully add the dry ice the vapor rises and the brew will bubble. I like to add the ice a chunk at a time instead of all at once. After about an hour the brew will be ready to drink.
You can make this as scary as you want based on your audience. It doesn't even have to be an elaborate presentation, but I will tell you that the kids will remember it. It's something we look forward to every year at our family party.
In my second pot I did another mixture with snacks. Here's what I had and what I said it was.
- Rice chex - spider webs
- Bugles - witch fingers (we witches lose our fingers and grow new ones)
- Cheerios - cat eyes
- Pretzel sticks - bat bones
- Chocolate chips - Dracula moles (he picks them off all the time!)
- Craisins - scabs
- Mini marshmallows - skeleton teeth
- Candy corn - chicken toes
- Red hots or hot tamales - drops of blood