Irish Coffee: History and the Classic Recipe

Irish coffee is four ingredients and one difficult step. Hot coffee, Irish whiskey, sugar and a layer of cream that floats instead of mixing. Nearly everyone gets the first three right and the fourth wrong.

Here is where the drink came from, the original recipe, and how to make the cream float.

The origin: a cold airport in 1943

Foynes, on the west coast of Ireland, was a transatlantic flying-boat terminal. Flights to North America were long, unpressurized and frequently turned back by weather, which left passengers arriving at the terminal in the middle of the night, cold and demoralized.

Joe Sheridan, the chef there, built a drink for exactly that situation: hot coffee, a measure of Irish whiskey, sugar, and cream floated on top. The story goes that an American passenger asked whether he was drinking Brazilian coffee, and Sheridan answered that it was Irish coffee. The name stuck.

It reached the US in 1952 through Stanton Delaplane, a travel writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, who drank it at Shannon Airport and brought the recipe to the Buena Vista Café in San Francisco. Getting the cream to float took the bar owner and Delaplane repeated attempts over several nights. The Buena Vista has served it ever since and now pours it in enormous volume.

The original recipe

The proportions Sheridan used, and the ones the Buena Vista still works from:

• 4 oz (120 ml) hot, strong black coffee
• 1.5 oz (45 ml) Irish whiskey
• 2 tsp brown sugar, or one sugar cube
• 1 oz (30 ml) heavy cream, lightly whipped and poured over the back of a spoon

Serve in a warmed, stemmed glass mug of about 6 to 8 oz. The glass matters: it shows the two layers, and the stem keeps your hand off the hot side.

The method

1. Warm the glass. Fill it with hot water, let it stand a minute, pour it out. A cold glass drops the drink below the temperature the cream needs to sit on, and the layers merge.
2. Sugar and whiskey first. Put the sugar in the warm glass, add the whiskey, and stir until the sugar dissolves completely. Undissolved sugar sinks and makes the last mouthful syrup.
3. Add hot coffee to about three quarters full, and stir again. The drink should be hot — around 150 °F (65 °C). This is the step most people rush.
4. Whip the cream to the right stage. This is the whole trick. You want it thickened but still pourable — roughly doubled in volume, leaving a trail but not holding a peak. About 30 seconds of hand whisking. Stiff cream sits in a lump; unwhipped cream sinks.
5. Pour over the back of a warmed spoon held just above the surface, slowly, so the cream spreads across the coffee rather than punching through it.
6. Do not stir. The drink is meant to be drunk hot through cold cream. Stirring makes it a different, worse drink.

Why the cream sinks, and how to fix it

• The cream was not whipped at all. Liquid cream is denser than the coffee-whiskey mixture and goes straight down. Whipping folds in air and drops the density.
• The cream was whipped too stiff. It then sits as a scoop rather than a layer, and the drink stops working.
• The coffee was not hot enough. The density difference shrinks as the coffee cools. Warm the glass and use freshly brewed coffee.
• The sugar was skipped. Dissolved sugar raises the density of the coffee layer, which is part of what holds the cream up. Skipping it makes floating measurably harder.
• The pour was too fast. Over the back of a spoon, slowly, or it breaks the surface.
• Low-fat cream was used. Heavy cream, 36% fat or higher. Half-and-half will not do it.

Which coffee and which whiskey

The coffee needs to be strong enough to hold its own against whiskey and cream, and clean enough not to turn muddy. A French press or a moka pot both work well; drip coffee is usually too thin unless you brew it stronger than normal.

• Tradition ($14.99) — washed and balanced. The clean, classic choice.
• Natural ($19.99) — heavier bodied, with fruit notes that sit interestingly against whiskey.

For whiskey, a standard blended Irish whiskey is what the original used and what the drink is built around — smooth, lightly sweet, no peat. A heavily peated Scotch will dominate everything else in the glass.

Variations

• Scottish coffee — Scotch instead of Irish whiskey. Smokier and more assertive.
• Café royale — brandy or cognac in place of whiskey.
• Irish coffee with coffee liqueur — half the whiskey replaced with a coffee liqueur. Sweeter, and it needs less sugar.
• Mint or chocolate — a small amount of crème de menthe or dark chocolate shaved over the cream.
• Iced Irish coffee — cold brew, whiskey, simple syrup, shaken, with cream floated on top. Works well in summer and avoids the temperature problem entirely. See cold brew at home.

Frequently asked questions

What whiskey should I use for Irish coffee?

A blended Irish whiskey. The drink was designed around that profile — smooth and slightly sweet, without heavy smoke. Bourbon works but pushes the drink sweeter; peated Scotch overwhelms the coffee.

Can I use whipped cream from a can?

It will float, but it collapses fast and is sweetened, which throws off the balance. Lightly hand-whipped heavy cream holds its layer far longer and tastes cleaner.

Should Irish coffee be stirred?

No. The intended experience is hot, sweetened, whiskey-laced coffee pulled through a cold cream layer. Stirring makes it uniformly lukewarm.

How strong is an Irish coffee?

With 1.5 oz of 40% whiskey, roughly the same alcohol as a standard cocktail, plus about 95 to 120 mg of caffeine from the coffee.

What glass should I use?

A stemmed, heat-resistant glass mug of 6 to 8 oz. The stem keeps your hand off the hot glass and the clear sides show the layers, which is half the point of the drink.

Start with coffee worth the whiskey

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