The roots could be used to brew a hot drink similar to coffee, and the flowers were collected for making dandelion wine. Within just a few years of the first settlers’ arrival, the dandelion had spread throughout the countryside. And the taste for dandelion wine still endures. In the 1950s, Ray Bradbury wrote a short story entitled “Dandelion Wine,” which was published in Gourmet Magazine and extolled the wine as the sweet elixir of youth.” Dandelion wine.