Traditional Irish Coffee
Oscar Wilde gave his simple description of how to make this soul-warming coffee cocktail:
Cream as rich as an Irish brogue,
Coffee as strong as a friendly hand.
Sugar as sweet as the tongue of a rogue,
Whiskey as smooth as the wit of the land.
If you just went with this, you would be very sated. But we’ll give you a bit more detail.
Time Needed: 5 minutes
Necessary Supplies
Ingredients
Guide Steps
Preheat the Cup
The traditional Irish Coffee cup is glass, with a thick, short stem, and a handle. It’s designed to handle hot beverages. Preheat with hot water.
Press is Best!
For the traditional Irish Coffee, you can’t beat a freshly pressed pot of coffee; it just seems to work best with the textures and booze you’re adding. Don’t skimp at all on the bean choice or prep method! Check our Press Pot Guide if you need guidance.
The Whiskey
Just as you don’t want to skimp on the coffee, don’t go cheap on the whiskey either; after all, you’re worth it! We’re using Jameson 12 year to make this drink extra special.
Hand Whip
It’s a bit of an effort, but this drink build demands you hand whip the heavy cream because you want to control the stiffness of the finished cream. You can’t get that out of a can or a bowl of Cool Whip.
"Pourable Stiff"
Continue whipping the cream until it just starts to stiffen up, but can still be ladled or “poured” with some help.
Add the Whiskey
Once the cream is whipped up, add your whiskey first, after emptying the glass of the pre-heating hot water. This allows the whiskey to immediately start releasing aromas from the heat.
Pour the Coffee
As quick as you can (this is an important step!), pour the coffee to infuse and distribute the whiskey, locking in the melange of flavours both beverages offer.
Add the Brown Sugar
Add the brown sugar, and stir until the heated beverage fully dissolves the brown crystals.
Fold in the Cream
As the fellows in San Francisco discovered (read on in this How To!), the secret to a really great Irish Coffee is folding the cream onto the beverage via a spoon. Gently pouring and layering it will create a beautiful beverage an an even better tasting drink.
The Completed Drink
Doesn’t that look great!? Drink it straight through the layered cream (don’t you dare stir it!).
Irish CoffeeThe History
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Foynes Airport in Ireland served as the hub for the latest mode of air travel – flying boat – between the US and Europe. Every flying boat leaving or arriving in Europe came through Foynes, and by 1940, that airport was being visited by the glitterati of the day: Ernest Hemingway, Humphrey Bogart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., just to name a few.
Passengers disembarking a flying boat were obliged to endure a boat trip to get to the terminal and sometimes found themselves chilled to the bone in the cold, damp North Atlantic winter. While the flying boats were preparing for the next leg of the journey, passengers recouped at the airport; sometimes they even had to stay overnight during poor weather. So much for glamour.
It soon became clear that a first-class restaurant showcasing the best of Irish cuisine was needed. By 1942, the restaurant was operating in full swing with chef Joe Sheridan.
One chilly night, a flight departed Foynes with stops scheduled in Newfoundland and New York, but adverse weather prompted the captain to turn about and head back to Foynes – not an unusual event – but certainly unpleasant, as it meant another trip in the boat. The restaurant was alerted to have food and drink prepared as the passengers would likely be cold, wretched, and in need of cheer.
Joe Sheridan had coffee prepared and decided to put a little something in it to give the passengers a little kick to get them out of their cold slump – so he added a drop (or two) of Irish whiskey to the brew. A surprised American passenger is said to have asked, “Is this Brazilian coffee?” to which Joe replied, “No, that’s Irish coffee!” From that day forward, Irish Coffee became known around the world as the official welcoming drink served at Foynes Airport.
In 1945, Foynes Airport closed, the age of the flying boats having come to an end as land-based aircraft came into their own, and a new airport for land-based airplanes was built nearby. Now known as Shannon International Airport, it is where Joe Sheridan took his now-famous Irish Coffee to welcome passengers to Shannon and to Ireland.
Irish Coffee comes to America
If Foynes was the birthplace of Irish Coffee, then San Francisco was its port of entry to North America. In 1952, the Buena Vista Café in San Francisco was a saloon where longshoremen and workers employed at the nearby sardine cannery took their breaks. At the Buena Vista, they could sip whiskey and watch for the fishing boats to arrive, signaling that it was time to head back to work.
In November of that year, Jack Koeppler, the owner of the Buena Vista, and his friend Stanton Delaplane, a renowned food critic who had enjoyed an Irish Coffee in Shannon, had a brilliant idea. They would re-create the recipe for Irish Coffee.
They spent hours experimenting with various whiskeys and proportions, but one thing eluded them. They couldn’t get the cream to float; it always sunk to the bottom of the glass. Jack even flew to Shannon to ask the man himself, Joe Sheridan, for the secret – whisk fresh cream just short of stiff and pour it slowly over the back of a spoon to float it on the coffee. The recipe was soon perfected, and it wasn’t long before the fame of the Buena Vista and its Irish Coffee spread throughout North America.
The Buena Vista Café can still be found on the corner of Beach and Hyde Streets, and even now, they make somewhere on the order of 2,000 Irish Coffees a day. In 2002, the Buena Vista celebrated the 50th anniversary of their famous re-creation and estimated that they have served over 32 million Irish Coffees over the years, making them the largest consumer of Irish whiskey in the US.
The Drink
Of course, Irish whiskey, not Scotch whisky, must be used. Irish whiskey is triple-distilled, giving it a smoother mouthfeel, and it is not as smoky as Scotch. But if you have a taste for Scotch, try Connemara Irish whiskey, which is a peated Irish whiskey. The most common brand of whiskey used is Jameson, which is quite readily available.
If you want authenticity, Joe Sheridan’s recipe originally called for Paddy Old Irish whiskey from the Cork distillery, but I have used a 15-year-old Redbreast which has a sweet, slightly oily finish. If you’re after these or any other rare whiskeys, they can be found at Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin.
In addition to whiskeys that can’t be found anywhere else, they carry the Irish whiskey that is specially bottled for the Buena Vista Café.
And about the coffee… in the original recipe, Bewley’s was used. Bewley’s is a coffee roasting company in Ireland; I’ve visited the roastery in Dublin while I was there. If you don’t happen to have Bewley’s on hand, go with a nice medium body, even acidity coffee that focuses more on chocolate, spice and earthy notes than acidity and floral notes.
Joe Sheridan
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A VariationDevil in Molly Malone
Mixology is a bit of a hobby of mine and there was a time when I worked with most of the top bartenders in Vancouver, teaching them about quality coffee. They, in turn, taught me about cocktails and how and why certain mixes work. With their help, I came up with a variation of the Irish Coffee that really modernizes the drink and gives it a different direction. I call it the Devil in Molly Malone.
The Devil in Molly Malone
There’s an ingredient, as a Canadian, that I feel is not used enough in cocktail builds: maple syrup. Many drinks call for “simple syrup” (a mixture of water and sugar), but why not add the extra unami-like characteristics of maple syrup to a drink instead?
I also like presenting flavours people don’t expect. We may talk “spicy” in coffee flavour notes, but these are always the most subtle of spicy “hints”. Not actual “spicy”. So those two elements are ones I wanted to factor into this drink recipe.
My family lives next to Gatineau Hills of Quebec, where the world’s literal best maple syrup is produced, and they send me out a batch every spring. For the whiskey, I went with the Redbreast 12 year, which is my own personal favourite. It is especially sweet and soft, with an attenuated sweet complexity that few other Irish Whiskeys seem to have. And I brought a chilli pepper to the party. Here’s the build:
The Glass
160ml glass; I’m using the Illy Collection Freddo crystal glass for this, which is… perfect.
The Ingredients
-
- 30 ml Redbreast 12 year whiskey
- 1 tsp Demerara (unrefined, raw) sugar
- 10 ml ultra premium maple syrup
- Fresh cold whipping cream
- Americano (4 oz / 120 ml)
- Small chili pepper
The Method
- Whip the cream with the maple syrup until just short of stiff. Set aside in the refrigerator to chill.
- Butterfly cut the chili and remove the seeds; then rub the rim of the glass with the inside of the chili and set aside for garnish.
- Preheat the glass with hot water until warm, and then empty the water.
- Pour in the whiskey and then the freshly brewed americano to about an inch below the top of the glass.
- Add the unrefined sugar and stir until fully dissolved.
- Carefully fold and float the cream over the back of the spoon into the glass and garnish with the butterfly-cut chilli.
On presentation to your guests, it’s up to you whether or not you tell them there’s a bit of a chili “hit” from the rim of the glass; hence the drink’s name.
Slàinte!
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