March, the time of St. Patrick’s Day. This leaves me no choice for my first cocktail of the month for March but the Irish Coffee. One of my favorite drinks, and one I rarely order when out. Why do I rarely order it when I’m out? Because far too frequently, what should be a sublime mixture of sugar, whiskey, coffee, and cream winds up being bastardized into something else while wearing the name. There are four things that should not be involved in an Irish Coffee:
- Bailey’s – Bailey’s and coffee is fine, but it isn’t an Irish Coffee
- Whipped Cream out of a can – No. Just no. The cream on top should be a heavy whipping cream that’s whipped until it pours like honey
- Creme de Menthe – Just because it’s green it doesn’t make it Irish.
- Maraschino Cherry – For the love of all that is holy, why? Who thinks coffee and whiskey, let’s put a cherry on top?
The Origin
There are multiple places that claim the invention of the Irish Coffee, including the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco (which I can confirm makes a very good one). Currently, the accepted theory is that it was invented during WW 2 at an airport terminal coffee shop in Limerick, Ireland.
From those humble beginnings, the drink spread around the world, and even got a glass named after it.
The Recipe
- 2 ounces Irish Whiskey (I prefer Tullamore Dew
- 1 tablespoon demerara sugar
- 4 ounces of strong black coffee
- 1-2 ounces heavy whipping cream whipped to the consistency of honey
To build this drink, start by pouring boiling water into your Irish Coffee glass (or a mug, I won’t tell or judge) and let it sit to preheat. Once the glass is warmed, you put in the sugar (you can make a simple syrup for this, but since we’re adding hot coffee, it’s not necessary), add the whiskey, and top with the coffee. Give it a stir with a spoon until the sugar is dissolved, and then using the back of the spoon, you want to float the cream on the top of the drink. When imbibing the drink, you want to drink through the cream to get to the whiskey laced coffee below.
Variations
This drink doesn’t lend itself well to many variations, but the choice of coffee and whiskey will make a big impact on the flavor. Back in my younger days, at one of the few bars I knew of where I could get a good Irish Coffee, there was a new bartender. Me and a friend were there, and we both ordered Irish Coffee with Tullamore. The bartender scoffed and said no one could tell the difference. My friend and I looked at each other and we offered a wager to the bartender, build three Irish Coffees. One with Tullamore Dew, one with Jameson, and one with Bushmills. If we named them all right, they were free, if we got even one wrong, we’d pay and tip at 100%.
We drank for free that night. While I’m pretty sure I could still live up to the challenge, I’m not likely going to be going through three Irish Coffees in a night.
Now, if you must make a variation to the drink (other than adjusting the level of ingredients to your taste), I would swap out 0.25 – 0.50 ounces of whiskey for a nut based liqueur such as Frangelico, Amaretto, or Nocino.
You could also make this a cold drink by using iced or cold brewed coffee. If you go that route, you would need to shake the drink to dissolve the sugar or use a simple syrup to get the sugar to dissolve.
Batch Prepping
While this is anathema to some, I have in the past filled up a large thermos/pump pot with the coffee, sugar, and whiskey mixture. From that I would dispense into a cup, and then top with whipped cream. It can be a bit difficult to keep these coming quickly if you’re making them one at a time.
Mocktail Version
There’s not much point in a no alcohol version of this drink, as at that point, you’ve made a cup of coffee with sugar and cream.
Creme de Menthe, in Irish Coffee? I have never heard of such an abomination.
Generally done as a green drizzle on top of from the can whipped cream on top of a coffee with Bailey’s.
Now, if you must make a variation to the drink (other than adjusting the level of ingredients to your taste), I would swap out 0.25 – 0.50 ounces of whiskey for a nut based liqueur such as Frangelico, Amaretto, or Nocino.
Oooo…. that sounds like a good variation.
Amaretto would be wonderful in an Irish coffee. And as it happens, I have an old bottle of Amaretto that’s been eyeballin’ me from the back of the liquor cabinet…
Pure genius
Scarborough officially left the Republican Party in 2017 to become an independent. But he has years of credibility with liberals who have watched him for the last decade defending Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democratic leaders.
He also has been relentless in his criticism of President Trump. His scathing criticism persisted, even though he and his wife had a controversial meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the 2024 election. Many Democrats criticized Scarborough for meeting with Trump, but they need to get over it, especially since he has continued his persistent and scathing criticism of the current Trump administration.
——-
Scarborough should be on the radar for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. Morning Joe would translate well to morning in America.
The voice of sanity America needs. Plus Mika. What an opportunity to get the nation back on track.
I live near Chicago, and we see their political ads. Every one of them lists the first qualification as “Will stand up to Trump.” That’s their entire brand right now.
That’s what the candidates for governor in California are running on too. How about paving the roads, balancing the budget, or improving schools? I guess those things are harder than grandstanding.
Paving the roads? They are building a choo-choo!
Balancing the budget? They have bonds!
Improving the schools? SCOTUS is shooting that down as we speak!
It worked for Gov. Mikie in New Jersey. That and lying about the sales tax views of her GOP opponent. And did you know she’s a helicopter pilot?
Really? Military or civilian?
Because if it’s military she’d be right around the age where they had a big cheating scandal at Annapolis.
Generally done as a green drizzle on top of from the can whipped cream on top of a coffee with Bailey’s.
Put some green glitter on it, whydontcha?
Gold leaf? Lucky Charms mallows?
I aint drinkin that
no love for Teeling?
https://youtube.com/shorts/pg_id4Uhmeo?si=6WOKpaddGT-XJfLU
Teeling’s is great. I toured their distillery in Dublin. Pre-Rona Panic their tour showed you their operation unlike Jameson’s.
Teelings is great. Toured the distillery when I was over there, felt bad for stumping the poor tour girl with questions.
Man that looks good.
“what should be a sublime mixture of sugar, whiskey, coffee, and cream”
And a shake of salt. While I prefer the cream whipped stiffer, it should have sugar and/or salt (sugar with a tiny bit of salt is for desserts, salted is for topping soups and such). Pure heavy cream is bland. Afaik, vanilla isn’t the original recipe, but is very common since the cream is often prepped for other uses. You aren’t going to have separate cream for Irish coffee and canned or nitrous canister cream for every other drink.
Learn how to make the Perfect Irish Coffee
Shannon College of Hotel Management
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-BPx7wGu4s
I got this when I was searching for the Teeling video which youtube randomly recommended to me some 2 weeks ago.
Now real Irish whisky is Midleton Very Rare nothing else will do.
I’ve done that in the past, with Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. It was a very, very good Irish coffee. I seem to recall it was for a party for one of our friend group getting married.
I’m sorry, but as much as I love coffee, it has no business being mixed with Midleton.
Gentleman, I have the perfect accompaniment for your Irish coffee:
Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes
Those look good.
I know I couldn’t but I am not any kind of whiskey aficionado.
Hi all.
Just read RC’s link to the bad kitty take on the Iran conflict . It is pretty solid.
True, what we are looking at is the great game, and yes, soft power is only effective if backed by hard power.
What the TDS sufferers do not understand is that Trump is a creature of their own making; their impotence of soft power having no backing.
Geez, I was going to expound and put you all to sleep but I have to go find my heartburn medicine.
Just finished it. Good stuff. A lot of the chattering classes could use a dose of Realpolitik today.
Same. Agreed, it’s good.
Although I took 5 minutes to have Gemini write a Userscript to fix the stupid all-lowercase. And had to dig up a “reader” plugin so I could switch to a serif font.
Honestly, people…
Word has the Change Case function.
Can I just get a glass of whisky neat?
No.
Yes
No. Get your own whisky. The stuff I drink neat, I hoard jealously.
You can, but that’s a bit lazy for me to write up a cocktail guide for.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/diy-guy-dash-mounts-a-steam-deck-gaming-handheld-to-tune-his-nissan-300zx
Huh.
Terrible news
Bill Gates-founded nuclear energy startup TerraPower has been granted approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a next-generation reactor in Wyoming. This is the first commercial-scale, advanced nuclear power plant to ever receive the federal permit, according to the press release, and will be the first commercial reactor constructed in the US in almost a decade.
Construction at the Wyoming plant is expected to be completed by 2030. TerraPower is one of several companies racing to build smaller, more efficient reactors to augment electrical grids under strain from AI data centers. In a 2024 interview with The Verge, Bill Gates said that he also believes nuclear energy can help solve the climate crisis by using designs that minimize the problem “in terms of their safety or fuel use or how they handle waste.”
All this talk about new nuclear is just a distraction. The goal is not to expand our supply of “clean” dependable energy, it’s to kowtow to the high priesthood of the eco-apocalypse cult.
I think this is going to be a positive side effect of AI. The current grid can’t handle data centers, and there is also a huge public backlash. If these AI companies push forward nuclear to power their data centers, we all benefit. And it will happen in the private sector much faster than a state or local government doing it. Even if they don’t share their electricity, it will prove these new reactors will work.
Amazon is building or has built/will expand data centers along the Columbia River a mile or two from the dams.
Hopefully they build some on the lower snake river dams the left has been trying to remove for the last thirty years, it would put an end to that disaster overnight.
With it, he controls the car’s standalone MicroSquirt ECU through the TunerStudio program.
That’s the important part.
MicroSquirt
Well that’s hardly a euphemism at all.
Speaking of things Irish!
“I can’t think of an instance where bombing a country ended up resulting in a better situation,” says @mattcarthy.
I can.
I’m not sure if that’s irony or self-awareness…
One of my college friends liked to bring a thermos of “Irish coffee” to hockey games.
Many a canteen of iced coffee and baillies in the motorpool.
No one took my canteen because they knew I drank black coffee.
it’s tanlines thursday
https://x.com/zoomergirls__/status/2029613159770689748
Sounds yum.
“Girl-drink drunk!”
It’s really a fantastic drink. It’s a shame it’s so rare to find it made correctly at a bar. At the peak, I could name four places locally (The Harp, Sullivan’s, Fado [chain, but they did them right], Spotted Owl) I would get one. Now that’s down to one for certain (only the Harp still exists), several others I may after chatting with the bartender.
Will he make sammiches for the troops?
Wife is pleased with Trump’s long overdue squashing of Iran…swatting down of China’s proxy really…but worried how things will turn out. Asking me why it always comes down to this.
“Because we are the winners of the scariest monster contest. Despite our intellectual power it ends with the fist. We are still in the monkey stage. It is as simple as that.”
I am reminded of the opening scenes of ‘2001; A Space Odyssey’
An early hominid discovers an animal bone can be used as a tool or weapon?
The origin was a drunk getting up in the morning and trying to hide that they were drinking at 7 AM.
Never forget that there were no deaths from burns or smoke inhalation during the Dublin whiskey fire, only deaths from alcohol poisoning.
♪♪♪“I am going, I am going, where streams of whiskey are flowing (yeah!)”♪♪♪
O show me the way to the next whiskey fire 🎶
Appropriate from Procol Harum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZoN0-OyqQQ
Did this make the AM discussion?
A new lawsuit alleges Google’s chatbot sent a Florida man on missions to find an android body it could inhabit. When that failed, it set a suicide countdown clock for him.
FL Man is amazing.
Far be it for me to miss an opportunity to trash Google, but somehow I don’t think that they were the problem here…
Google ate my homework, 2026 edition.
With amaretto.
Yes please.
Now, we all know I don’t drink. But. It seems to me that mixing dairy products and liquor would spark some type of curdling reaction. Sounds even MORE disgusting than either dairy OR liquor.
And the only reason I find dairy somewhat disgusting is just milk and that’s because it snots me all up in the head and tears up my innards. My yearly Christmas morning bowl of cereal is becoming unbearable. Apple Jacks and Lucky Charms are just not worth it anymore.
As long as you don’t go acidic with your alcohol, you’re fine. I mean, there’s always the Cement Mixer.
No curdling reaction. Kahlua and Cream is a great, tasty example.
White Russians. Especially good with Van Gogh Double Espresso vodka.
Nope, you can rest easy. Dairy curdles when the pH of the solution changes significantly, as in when an acid is added to the mixture. Most distilled spirits are pH neutral (6-7), and won’t cause a curdling reaction. There are a few that are acidic enough to be a problem – I wouldn’t suggest using barrel-aged whisky in your Irish Coffee.
I assume you’re referring to cask strength? Because all whisk(e)y is barrel aged by definition.
Beer on the other hand, is usually acidic enough to cause curdling. That’s what causes the… chunkiness… of a slowly consumed Irish
cocktailCar Bomb.OT: Noem out as DHS Secretary, now “Special Envoy”
Donald Trump has fired Kristi Noem as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, ending her year-long tenure at an agency that is leading his mass deportation efforts and an anti-immigration campaign that has targeted thousands of immigrants and their families.
He has nominated Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin to replace her.
Noem has “served us well,” the president announced on Truth Social Thursday.
She will be named “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” according to the president, who described the role as “our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.” The initiative will be formally announced Saturday, he said.
Dogs everywhere howl in relief!
I’m fine with this, Too much drama. Now for Bondi.
“Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas” sounds like one of those jobs where you get an office with no phone, computer, or secretary – just a window to look out of. We live in hope.
Innocents, pure as the snow until Orange Hitler went after them.
Sad thing is I think this is rather funny!
so sick of these white tech bros coming to japan to meet up with japanese women