Irish coffee

Irish Coffee
IBA official cocktail
A glass of Irish coffee
Type Mixed drink
Primary alcohol by volume
Served Hot
Standard drinkware
Irish coffee mug
IBA specified
ingredientsdagger
Preparation Heat the coffee, whiskey and sugar; do not boil. Pour into glass and top with cream; serve hot.
dagger Irish Coffee recipe at International Bartenders Association

Irish coffee (Irish: caife Gaelach) is a cocktail consisting of hot coffee, Irish whiskey, and sugar (some recipes specify that brown sugar should be used,[1]) stirred, and topped with thick cream. The coffee is drunk through the cream. The original recipe explicitly uses cream that has not been whipped, although drinks made with whipped cream are often sold as "Irish coffee". The term "Irish coffee" is also sometimes used colloquially to refer to alcoholic coffee drinks in general.

Origin

Different variations of coffee cocktails pre-date the now-classic Irish coffee by at least 100 years. Several places claim to have developed the modern recipe in the 1950s.

Joe Sheridan, a head chef at the restaurant and coffee shop in the Foynes Airbase[2][3] Flying boat terminal building, County Limerick[4] played his part in 1942 or 1943[5] after a group of American passengers disembarked from a several-hour failed Atlantic crossing due to bad weather[6] on a Pan Am Clipper flying boat. Sheridan added whiskey to the coffee to warm the passengers. When the passengers asked if they were being served Brazilian coffee, Sheridan told them it was "Irish coffee".[7][4][8]

Stanton Delaplane, a travel writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, brought Irish coffee to the United States after drinking it at Shannon Airport, when he worked with the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco to start serving it on November 10, 1952,[9] and worked with the bar owners Jack Koeppler and George Freeberg to recreate the Irish method for floating the cream on top of the coffee, sampling the drink one night until he nearly passed out.[10][11] The group also sought help from the city's then mayor, George Christopher, who owned a dairy and suggested that cream aged at least 48 hours would be more apt to float.[12] Delaplane popularized the drink by mentioning it frequently in his travel column, which was widely read throughout America. In later years, after the Buena Vista had served, by its count, more than 30 million of the drinks, Delaplane and the owners grew tired of the drink. A friend commented that the problem with Irish coffee is that it ruins three good drinks: coffee, cream, and whiskey.[13]

Joe Sheridan continued to work at the new Shannon Airport at Rineanna.[6] Originally from Castlederg, County Tyrone, in 1952, Sheridan emigrated, to work at the Buena Vista Cafe, in San Francisco.[14][6][15][16][17][18][17][19][20][21][22][23][24]

Other claims

Tom Bergin's Tavern[25] in Los Angeles[26] also claims to have been the originator[27] and has had a large sign in place reading "House of Irish Coffee" since the early 1950s.[28][29]

Other sources claim that Joe Jackson perfected the recipe at Jacksons Hotel, Ballybofey, Co. Donegal.[30]

Earlier coffee and alcohol cocktails

From the mid 19th century, the Pharisäer and the Fiaker were served in Viennese coffee houses; both were coffee cocktails served in glass, topped with whipped cream. The former was also known in northern Germany and Denmark around that time. Around 1900, the coffee cocktail menu in the Viennese cafés also included Kaisermelange, Maria Theresia, Biedermeier-Kaffee and a handful of other variations on the theme.

In 19th-century France, a mixture of coffee and spirits was called a gloria.

  • "Un trait de son caractère était de payer généreusement quinze francs par mois pour le gloria qu'il prenait au dessert." (Balzac, Le Père Goriot, 1834, I.)
  • "Il aimait le gros cidre, les gigots saignants, les glorias longuement battus." (Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 1857.)

Preparation

Preparing an Irish coffee

Black coffee is poured into a mug. Whiskey and at least one level teaspoon of sugar are stirred in until fully dissolved. The sugar is essential for floating liquid cream on top.[31] Thick cream is carefully poured over the back of a spoon initially held just above the surface of the coffee and gradually raised a little.[32] The layer of cream will float on the coffee without mixing. The coffee is drunk through the layer of cream.

Variations

In 1988, the National Standards Authority of Ireland published Irish Standard I.S. 417: Irish Coffee.[lower-alpha 1]

Although whiskey, coffee and cream are the basic ingredients in all Irish coffee, there are variations in preparation: the choice of coffee and the methods used for brewing it differ significantly. The use of espresso machines or fully automatic coffee brewers is now typical: the coffee is either a caffè americano (espresso diluted with hot water) or some kind of filter coffee, often made using a coffee capsule.

The cream used in some bars to make what is sold as "Irish coffee" is sometimes sprayed from a can. Some bartenders gently shake fresh cream to achieve a smooth layer on top of the coffee.

In Spain, Irish coffee (café irlandés) is sometimes served with a bottom layer of whiskey, a separate coffee layer, and a layer of cream on top;[34] special devices are sold for making it.

Some bars in Southeast Asia serve a cocktail of iced coffee and whiskey, sometimes without cream, under the name "Irish coffee".

Many drinks of hot coffee with a distilled spirit, and cream floated on top—liqueur coffees—are given names derived from Irish coffee, although the names are not standardised. Irish cream coffee (also known as Bailey's coffee) can be considered a variant of Irish coffee, but involves the use of Irish cream as a "pre-mixed" substitute for the whisky, cream and sugar. Jamaican coffee would be expected to be made with rum; Highland coffee, also called Gaelic coffee, with Scotch whisky; and so on.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The standard can be obtained from Standards IE.[33]

References

  1. ↑ Irish coffee recipe, IBA, archived from the original on 2015-03-07 , specifying brown sugar, and that fresh cream should be floated on top.
  2. ↑ Coyle, Cathal (1 December 2014). "Little Book of Tyrone". The History Press – via Google Books.
  3. ↑ "The War Room - Foynes Flying Boat Base". www.skynet.ie.
  4. 1 2 Our Irish Coffee Heritage, Foynes Flying Boat Museum, archived from the original on 2011-01-22 .
  5. ↑ Joseph, Peter (12 January 2018). "Boozy Brunch: The Quintessential Guide to Daytime Drinking". Rowman & Littlefield – via Google Books.
  6. 1 2 3 "Irish Coffee Festival". 15 February 2003.
  7. ↑ "Irish Coffee", European Cuisines .
  8. ↑ "Foynes Irish Coffee Centre". Foynes Flying Boat & Maritime Museum. Retrieved 2018-01-12.
  9. ↑ Nolte, Carl (November 22, 2006). "San Francisco: Coffee, cream, sugar and — Irish whiskey... but Buena Vista changed brands". San Francisco Chronicle. SF Gate. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
  10. ↑ Nolte, Carl (November 9, 2008). "The man who brought Irish coffee to America". San Francisco Chronicle. SF Gate.
  11. ↑ King, John (November 9, 2008). "SF bar celebrates 56 years of Irish coffee". San Francisco Chronicle. SF Gate.
  12. ↑ Garvey, John; Hanning, Karen (2008). Irish San Francisco. Arcadia. ISBN 978-0-7385-3049-9.
  13. ↑ Nolte, Carl (November 16, 2002). "Java the Irish way: 50 years ago, a new drink was born in an SF cafe". San Francisco Chronicle. SF Gate.
  14. ↑ "Foynes Flying Boat Museum". 16 May 2011.
  15. ↑ "Irish Coffee Kitchen Recipes Irish culture and customs - World Cultures European". www.irishcultureandcustoms.com.
  16. ↑ "The Boozy History of Irish Coffee".
  17. 1 2 "S3 Episode 2: The History of Irish Coffee - Boise Coffee". 21 March 2017.
  18. ↑ "The True History of Irish Coffee and Its San Francisco Origins". 16 November 2017.
  19. ↑ "Luck of the Irish...Irish Coffee That Is - Travel Gluttons". www.travelgluttons.com.
  20. ↑ Stradley, Linda (15 April 2015). "Irish Coffee Recipe and History, Whats Cooking America".
  21. ↑ "The real story about Irish coffee and how it was invented". 29 June 2017.
  22. ↑ "The Sea Planes Land". www.askaboutireland.ie.
  23. ↑ "Learning How to Make Irish Coffee Where it was Invented". 23 January 2014.
  24. ↑ "Irish Coffee". golddustsf.com.
  25. ↑ "Tom Bergin's Tavern - L.A. - calendarlive.com". 11 March 2007.
  26. ↑ "Recipe In Memoriam: The Late (*sniff) Tom Bergin's Irish Coffee - Los Angeles Magazine". 10 July 2013.
  27. ↑ "The 6 best Irish coffees in Los Angeles".
  28. ↑ "Learn How To Make Tom Bergin's Iconic Irish Coffee The Right Way".
  29. ↑ "Photos: The Legends Behind Tom Bergin's Public House, Celebrating 80 Years".
  30. ↑ "Celebrate the invention of Irish", Donegal democrat, IE, archived from the original on 2009-08-30 .
  31. ↑ "Joe Sheridan's Original Irish Coffee Recipe". CoffeeCakes.com. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
  32. ↑ "Traditional Irish Coffee Recipe". Good food Ireland. Retrieved 2009-12-08.
  33. ↑ Standards, IE .
  34. ↑ "Recipes", Gastronomia vasca, archived from the original on 2003-10-04 .
  • "The Irish Coffee Story". San Francisco, CA, US: The Buena Vista Cafe.
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