Sherbet lemon

Sherbet Lemon
Food information
Manufacturer	Muggles
Sold	Muggle sweetshops
Flavour	Lemon
Known ingredients	Sherbert

Dumbledore: "Would you care for a sherbet lemon?"

McGonagall: "A what?"

Dumbledore: "A sherbet lemon. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."

McGonagall: "No, thank you."

— Professor Albus Dumbledore and Professor Minerva McGonagall discussing sherbet lemons

A sherbet lemon was a hard, lemon-flavoured Muggle sweet that was filled with fizzy sweet powder.

History

A bowl of sherbet lemons

Albus Dumbledore was particularly fond of these sweets, so much in fact, that he brought some along with him on the night he and Professor McGonagall went to leave infant Harry Potter with the Dursleys in 1981. He offered McGonagall one, but she refused, thinking it an inappropriate time for eating sweets. Dumbledore's liking of the sweet evidently continued, as years later, during Harry's time at Hogwarts, "Sherbet Lemon" was one of the passwords to his office in 1992.

Behind the scenes

• The name of the sweet is "Sherbet Lemon" in the original British editions, while it became mostly "Lemon Drop" in the American editions.
  • In the American edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the sweet is called "Lemon drop". In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the password for Dumbledore's office is "Lemon Drop", yet, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Harry tries to access Dumbledore's office, using the password he had learned two years earlier, he says "Sherbet Lemon".

    

    "Dumbledore's sweets" on Pottermore

• "Dumbledore's sweets" was one out of the thirty-two options generated by an old feature on Pottermore, "Wonderful wizarding world happiness generator", which was about things that could cast away the Blue Monday blues.
  • The description was "Dumbledore, blessed eccentric that he was, loved a good ol' sherbet lemon. We feel better just looking at one".

Translations

• In Portuguese, it's translated as Limonada ("Lemonade") in Philosopher's Stone and Refresco de Limão ("Lemon Refreshment") in Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire.
• In Danish and Swedish editions of Philosopher's Stone, it's mistranslated as citronsorbet and citronisglass ("lemon sorbet" and "lemon ice cream", respectively), due to the fact that "sherbet" is also an alternate way of spelling "sorbet".
• In Hebrew, it was changed to krembo, a popular Israeli chocolate-coated marshmallow treat, which does not contain any lemon ingredient. The reason for the change given by the Israeli translator Gili Bar-Hillel was that krembo is the equivalent children’s dessert in Israel.
• In Indonesian, it's translated as Permen Jeruk ("Orange Candy").
• In older Czech translations, the candy is translated as "citrónová zmrzlina" (lemon ice cream or lemon sorbet), as sherbet is also a term for certain types of ice cream. Later works changed the translation to "citronové dropsy" (lemon hard candy).

Appearances

A bowl of sherbet lemons as seen in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (First appearance)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Mentioned only)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film) (Mentioned only)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game) (Mentioned only)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
• The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
• Pottermore
• Harry Potter: Wizards Unite