| IBA Official Cocktail | |
|---|---|
| A glass of Irish coffee | |
| Type | Mixed drink |
| Served | Hot |
| Standard drinkware | Irish coffee mug |
| IBA specified ingredients* |
|
| Preparation | Heat the coffee, whiskey and sugar; do not boil. Pour into glass and top with cream; serve hot. |
| * Irish Coffee recipe at International Bartenders Association | |
Irish coffee (Irish: Caifé Gaelach) is a cocktail consisting of hot coffee, Irish whiskey, and brown sugar, 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 whipped cream is often used. Sugar should be brown and not white. Irish coffee may be considered a variation on the hot toddy.
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The origin of the Irish coffee is highly disputed . Although different variations of coffee cocktails pre-dates the now classic Irish Coffee with at least 100 years, the original Irish coffee was according to sources invented and named by Joseph Sheridan, a head chef at Foynes, County Limerick but originally from Castlederg, County Tyrone. Foynes' port was the precursor to Shannon International Airport in the west of Ireland; the coffee was conceived after a group of American passengers disembarked from a Pan Am flying boat on a miserable winter evening in the 1940s. 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.[1][2]
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,[3][4] 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.[5][6] 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.[7] 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.[8]
Tom Bergin's Tavern in Los Angeles,[9] also claims to have been the originator and has had a large sign in place reading "House of Irish Coffee" since the early 1950s.
In Spain a "Café Irlandés" ("Irish Coffee") is sometimes served with a bottom layer of whiskey, a separate coffee layer, and a layer of cream on top.[10] Special devices are sold for making Café Irlandés.
Other sources claim that Joe Jackson perfected the recipe at Jacksons Hotel, Ballybofey, Co. Donegal.[11]
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 is 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 over the theme.
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.[12] 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.[13] The layer of cream will float on the coffee without mixing. The coffee is drunk through the layer of cream.
To ensure the integrity of the ingredients of Irish Coffee, NSAI, Ireland's national standards body, published an Irish Standard, I.S. 417 Irish Coffee, in 1988.[14]
Although there is no doubt concerning the origin of the whiskey in an Irish Coffee, the choice of coffee and the methods used for brewing it differ a lot. Most Bars, Pubs and Cafès today use espresso machines or fully automatic coffee brewers: the coffee is either an caffè americano (espresso diluted with hot water) or some kind of filter coffee. The capsule method, as introduced by Nespresso is gaining popularity. The World Championship in "Coffee In Good Spirits" is a yearly event, where Irish Coffee is one of two Coffee Cocktails being prepared in the finals. The preferred coffees used in national heats as well as in the international finals the last years have been mild coffea arabicas (Colombia or Latin America, and the preferred brew methods have gone towards filter methods; 'pour over', 'syphon' or 'aeropress. The cream used in most bars is more often than not from spray cans, causing some dispute from purists. A serious bartender will gently shake fresh cream to a achieve a smooth layer atop the coffee, and then serve the Cocktail without a straw, as it is advised to drink the coffee through the layer of cream.
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