A warming after-dinner drink of hot black coffee laced with Irish whiskey and rounded out with sugar, crowned by a thick collar of softly whipped cream floated over the back of a spoon. Each sip is drawn through the cool, silky cream into the warm, boozy coffee beneath, the whiskey's malty warmth and the sugar softening the coffee's bitter edge while the cream stays a distinct cold layer on top.
built · Irish coffee glass
build
Preheat the Irish coffee glass with hot water, then discard.
add
Pour hot black coffee into the warmed glass.
add
Add Irish whiskey and sugar; stir until the sugar fully dissolves.
top
Float lightly whipped chilled cream over the back of a spoon so it sits as a distinct layer without mixing into the coffee.
Spirited coffees such as the 19th-century French gloria were already around, but the modern Irish Coffee traces to Joe Sheridan, who ran the kitchen at the flying boat terminal in Foynes, Ireland. In 1942 or 1943 he began lacing coffee with whiskey for chilled transatlantic travelers stranded at the airbase. From 1952 the travel writer Stanton Delaplane and San Francisco's Buena Vista Cafe took it up and turned it into a fixture of American drinking, and Sheridan eventually crossed the Atlantic himself to join the Buena Vista's staff.