Cocktail recipe
Irish Coffee
Hot coffee and Irish whiskey under a cool, floating blanket of cream.
Ingredients
- 45 ml (1½ oz) Irish whiskey
- 120 ml (4 oz) freshly brewed hot coffee
- 8 g (2 tsp) brown sugar
- 30 ml (1 oz) lightly whipped cold heavy cream
- Garnish: none
Preparation
Prewarm a heatproof glass, then dissolve the measured sugar thoroughly in the hot coffee, then add the whiskey. Whip cold cream only until it thickens enough to flow, and ease it over the back of a spoon into a distinct floating cap. Serve immediately; drink the coffee through the cream.
Glassware
Preheated heatproof Irish coffee glass, approximately 180–240 ml
History
Joe Sheridan is credited with creating Irish Coffee at the Foynes flying-boat terminal in County Limerick during the early 1940s, serving cold, delayed transatlantic travellers. Some versions place the first service in 1942 or 1943; the precise date should not be treated as settled. The drink later spread through Shannon Airport. In San Francisco, travel writer Stanton Delaplane and Buena Vista owner Jack Koeppler worked to reproduce it; Buena Vista dates its successful American introduction to November 10, 1952, and records their efforts to float the cream. Foynes is the origin story; Buena Vista is the influential American popularizer.
Mixology View
The floating cream is structural. Sweeten the hot coffee sufficiently for the cream to rest above it, then sip through the cool layer—never stir the finished glass.