You don’t need a specific, shamrock-adjacent date to enjoy Irish Coffee. They’re poured year round at San Francisco’s Buena Vista Cafe, where then-bar Jack Koeppler and San Francisco newspaper columnist Stanton Delaplane introduced the whiskey-based cocktail to the U.S. in 1952. Caffeine, booze, sugar? It’s a match made in heaven.
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At the Buena Vista, it’s made with Tullamore Dew whiskey, two sugar cubes and Oakland’s Peerless coffee and topped with heavy cream, beaten to a soft froth poured over the back of a spoon to achieve the signature float.
But there are variations a’plenty. Some bars tinker with ratios. Others play with the sugar — skipping sugar cubes in favor of a simple syrup, for example, made by simmering equal parts demerera sugar and 1 cup water for a few minutes. Some dabble with cream whipping techniques. Bay Area bartender Wesley Quinlan, for example, uses a cocktail shaker with a Hawthorne strainer to whip the cream and sweetens both the coffee and the cream with demerara.
And while some vary the whiskey, others use a different spirit altogether. America’s Test Kitchen does the classic but offers suggestions for making a Caribbean or Italian version, too. So if you’re not feeling the luck of the Irish, the fortuna of the Italian might send you in an amaro-tinged direction.
Here are the how-tos.
Irish Coffee
Makes 1 cocktail
INGREDIENTS
2 ounces heavy cream
¾ ounce simple syrup, divided
4 ounces brewed hot coffee
1 ounce Irish whiskey
DIRECTIONS
Whisk cream and ¼ ounce simple syrup in a chilled bowl until soft peaks just begin to form, about 30 seconds; set aside.
Add coffee, whiskey and remaining ½ ounce syrup to a warmed glass mug and stir to combine. Dollop whipped cream over top. Serve.
TWISTS
For a Caribbean Coffee, substitute orgeat — the almond-flavored syrup used in mai tais — for the simple syrup and aged rum for whiskey.
For an Italian Coffee, use a lemon-infused citrus syrup and an amaro.
— Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen
