Irish-American Coffee

Uncle Sam’s twist on the Irish coffee.

It’s hard not to love an Irish coffee. Sweet brown sugar, whipped cream, piping hot coffee, and a dollop of Irish whiskey is a tough combination to beat. It feels like a recipe that’s been around for centuries and it may very well have been. However, the early 1940s is when the recipe first appeared thanks to a man named Joe Sheridan. Working as the head chef of a restaurant in the Foynes Flying Boat terminal, Sheridan wanted to create a cocktail that gave people a warm welcome and added a little pep to their step. Whiskey and coffee seemed like a natural pairing – especially for an Irishman.

As the story goes, a customer mistook the drink for a Brazilian coffee, since the country was known for combining sweet sugar and coffee. Sheridan responded that it was actually an “Irish coffee” and that was that. The cocktail was a bit of a local commodity until it appeared in an article in the “San Francisco Chronicle” about a decade later. Once it went stateside, the coffee concoction was launched into stardom.

So while the Irish coffee is a nearly perfect creation, there is one small way to make it better. For this Irish-American Coffee, we swap the traditional Irish whiskey for American bourbon whiskey. The two whiskies actually have a lot in common, bourbon just has higher requirements and usually a higher corn ratio than its Irish counterpart.

With this recipe, you can get as creative as you like. Increase the sugar if you want a sweeter drink, swap the cocoa powder for cinnamon or nutmeg, you name it. Pour a cup of this on St. Patrick’s Day or any day that just needs a little dash of high-proof bourbon whiskey.