Merry Christmas everyone! It’s time for my annual Christmas boozy drink recipe, and this year I’m going with a classic Irish coffee. Many have been made and drunk in the Buttery household over the last couple of weeks: all in the name of research, you understand.
The Irish coffee was invented soon after the end of World War Two in 1945; transatlantic flights had just recommenced and there were flights from the US full of visiting dignitaries landing at Shannon airport. Chef Joe Sheridan was tasked with making a special drink for the travellers that was comforting and evocative of Ireland’s warm hospitality. He came up with a ‘Gaelic coffee’, a mixture of whiskey, brown sugar cubes, hot coffee and cream. It was a great success and was given to all travellers landing at Shannon Airport thereafter.[1]
In the 1950s, the drink, now called Irish coffee, was taken to the USA where it was made bigger and sweeter, and sugar syrup replaced sugar cubes.[2]
From a personal point of view, I have great memories of going to a lovely little Indian restaurant with my parents in Pudsey, West Yorkshire in my late teens. We always ended our meal with one of their delicious Irish coffees. It didn’t occur to any of us to ask why an Indian restaurant in Yorkshire was serving Irish coffee.
This recipe is based on the one provided by Matthew Roberston in the excellent Cocktail Bible.[3] (Robertson, 2018) It’s made extra special with the inclusion of a dash of coffee liqueur and a sweetening of vanilla syrup, though you could just use regular sugar syrup and miss out the liqueur. I think one shot of syrup is too much, though not everyone in the family agreed with me on that one, so add to taste.
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Per person:
1 ¾ shots Irish whiskey
2 shots espresso, or very strong coffee
½ shot coffee liqueur such as Kalua
½ to 1 shot vanilla or sugar syrup
2 good tablespoons of lightly whipped double cream
Warm all of the ingredients, except the cream, in a saucepan until they just begin to simmer—don’t boil it hard, as you’ll lose much of the alcohol!
Pour into a small glass such as a rocks glass and spoon over the floppily-whipped cream; as it melts it will form a delicious layer of cream.
Notes:
[1] MacMahon, J. (2024) An Irish Food Story: 100 Foods That Made Us. Nine Bean Rows; Wondrich, D. and Rothbaum, D. (eds) (2021) The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. Oxford University Press.
[2] Wondrich and Rothbaum (2021)
[3] Robertson, M. (2018) The Cocktail Bible. Hamlyn.
