LeFou’s Brew: New Fantasyland’s Answer to Butterbeer
Disney announced today that Gaston’s Tavern in New Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom will be serving a signature drink called LeFou’s Brew, which is a no-sugar added frozen apple juice drink with a hint of toasted marshmallow, and topped with all-natural passion fruit-mango foam.
This same drink is served in Cars Land at Disney California Adventure as “Red’s Apple Freeze.” Gaston’s Tavern will also serve cinnamon rolls all day.
Our Reaction
This blog is not known for its hard-hitting journalism, but even I recognize that this is marginal news, at best. However, I wanted to report on it as it relates to how Disney might be positioning New Fantasyland, which I think is interesting. Disney isn’t saving so, but LeFou’s Brew is undoubtedly Walt Disney World’s answer to Butterbeer at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando. Given the popularity and fanfare surrounding Butterbeer, it’s unsurprising that Disney wants to have its own signature drink. If the shoe were on the other foot, Universal would certainly be “copying” Disney’s move, so you can’t really fault Disney for wanting its own signature drink.
It is a bit surprising to me that Disney’s answer is taking a drink from Disney California Adventure and renaming it. While I’m not a fan of cloned attractions, I hardly care that Disney is cloning (and renaming) a drink. It just seems odd to me that the signature drink for the new land would be a re-branded drink from another park. Red’s Apple Freeze is quite popular in California, but is LeFou’s Brew likely to garner the same attention in the mainstream media as Butterbeer if it’s known that LeFou’s Brew is simply a re-branded beverage?
Part of the pop culture popularity of Butterbeer is its status as the “Harry Potter drink.” I assume the vast majority of guests to New Fantasyland won’t realize it’s a Cars Land beverage, and it will still sell incredibly well, but any journalist who does their due diligence (journalists still do this, right?) will realize the origins of this signature drink. Does that make it less-appealing of a topic of conversation for the media? Certainly no one is going to book a trip solely because of LeFou’s Brew, but I think it’s tough to argue that Wizarding World of Harry Potter hasn’t benefited from all of the fanfare surrounding Butterbeer. I think Disney is going to have a difficult time matching that excitement given the circumstances. This relates more to the business side of Disney, not the guest experience.
From a guest perspective, this should be exciting for most New Fantasyland guests, as Red’s Apple Freeze is incredibly popular in Disney California Adventure. The drink may not fit thematically with the French setting of Gaston’s Tavern, but that’s a non-issue for me. A lot of foods aren’t themed to their lands. The fact that Gaston’s Tavern is receiving a non-alcoholic drink that will work with its “tavern” theme is enough for me.
This is already a 500 word article about a new beverage…which is about 475 words too many, so I’ll end it here.
I agree with Dan on this one. Universal did such a HUGE campaign advertising the Butterbeer that by the time the Wizarding World opened people wanted to fly to Orlando just to taste it! (pardon the hyperbole, but can’t you picture some people doing this?) They said how they flew recipes to JK Rowling just to have her sample them and get her approval. They marketed it up HUGE as one of the major attractions of the new land.
Disney has a chance to make it a cool signature item, but a) the rebranding and b) the fact that it isn’t really something iconic we’re all already familiar with (as butter beer was from the books) makes me think this one might fall a tad flat.
But still can’t wait to try it!
I feel like the bigger problem that people are ignoring is that Gaston’s is going to serve cinnamon rolls as its definitive dish. Shouldn’t the main attraction at a CS place named after someone like Gaston be something more akin to a bacon wrapped turkey leg? Or a Ron Swanson special?
Good point! I love cinnamon rolls, so in that regard, I’m all for it, but you’re right – cinnamon rolls don’t fit into the pub theme or the Gaston theme. Odd.
I am very, very pro ANYTHING Ron Swanson-related in the parks. I would even favor a Ron Swanson dark ride in Frontierland!
I mean, Gaston ate 4 dozen eggs every morning to help him get large, shouldn’t we be able to eat ALL the bacon and eggs?
I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. It is nice that Disney is trying to mimic Universal by creating an iconic beverage. But butterbeer had the benefit of being a beverage featured in the Harry Potter books. Children wanted to try the drink just to see what it tasted like, because they had read about it in the novels. In a similar way, children wanted to try the Harry Potter jelly beans because they wanted to see if the flavors in real life matched what they had read.
Disney’s apple drink might be wonderful, but it lacks a connection to the Beauty and the Beast storyline. It isn’t like Disney is bringing any special element of the Beauty and the Beast story to life by offering this drink. It is simply a new menu item being served in a themed mug.
My thoughts exactly. Butterbeer could have tasted like rainwater and I still would have been dying to try it/would have paid anything for it because it was something iconic I had read about in books/seen in movies for the past decade plus. I feel like they would do better to serve something called “the gray stuff” in New Fantasyland just because it’s something iconic that people have heard of.
I’m looking forward to trying this, but I’m not really much of a fan of butterbeer. It tastes pretty much like a British drink called cream soda, so when British people like me taste it a lot of them don’t find it to be such a unique experience…
I haven’t tried the Apple Freeze, so I cannot speak as to its delicious-ness (or lack thereof) but my assumption would be that it doesn’t compare to butterbeer. I know we’re all huge Disney fans here, but MAN! butterbeer is AMAZING.