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), 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
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Different variations of coffee cocktails pre-date the now-classic Irish coffee by at least 100 years, before Joe Sheridan, a head chef at the restaurant and coffee shop in the Foynes Airbase Flying boat terminal building, County Limerick played his part in 1942 or 1943 after a group of American passengers disembarked from a several-hour failed Atlantic crossing due to bad weather conditions on a Pan Am Clipper flying boat. Sheridan added whiskey to the coffee to warm the passengers. After the passengers asked if they were being served Brazilian coffee, Sheridan told them it was "Irish coffee".
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, 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. 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. 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.
Joe Sheridan, continued working at the replacement, Shannon Airport at Rineanna. Originally from Castlederg, County Tyrone, in 1952, Sheridan emigrated, to work at the Buena Vista Cafe, in San Francisco.
Other claims
Tom Bergin's Tavern in Los Angeles, also claims to have been the originator and has had a large sign in place reading "House of Irish Coffee" since the early 1950s.
Other sources claim that Joe Jackson perfected the recipe at Jacksons Hotel, Ballybofey, Co. Donegal.
Earlier coffee and alcohol cocktails
From the mid 19th century, the Pharisäer and the Fiaker were served in Viennese coffee houses, both coffee cocktails served in glass, topped with whipped cream. The former was also known in northern Germany and Denmark around this time. Around the turn of the 20th century 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
Black coffee is poured into the mug. Whiskey and at least one level teaspoon of sugar is stirred in until fully dissolved. The sugar is essential for floating liquid cream on top. 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. 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.
Although whiskey, coffee and cream are the basic ingredients in all Irish coffee, variations in preparation exist. 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 by 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 atop 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; 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 topâ€"liqueur coffeesâ€"are given names derived from Irish coffee, although the names are not standardised. Irish cream coffee (a.k.a., 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
- Rüdesheimer Kaffee
- List of coffee drinks
- List of hot beverages
Notes
References
External links
- "The Irish Coffee Story". San Francisco, CA, US: The Buena Vista Cafe.Â
