Real Irish Coffee Story and the Original Recipe
The Creation of the Popular Drink is a Chapter in Irish History
Sep 15, 2009
In the 1930s and early 1940s, the big names in politics and Hollywood traveled through tiny Foynes, Ireland, where Pan Am Flying Boats made water landings on the broad estuary of the Shannon River on a stopover between the U.S. and Europe.
As they waited for the aircraft to be readied for the onward journey, passengers gathered in the terminal’s restaurant. To lift their spirits after a particularly grueling flight in 1943 (or by some accounts, 1942), chef Joseph Sheridan offered them a hot drink of coffee, cream and Irish whiskey. The passengers raved about the drink, including one who asked if it was Brazilian coffee. The chef replied that no, it was Irish Coffee.
The name stuck and the reputation of the warming concoction rose on the fame of the airport’s notable passengers, among them Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Maureen O’Hara, Eleanor Roosevelt, Humphrey Bogart, Ernest Hemingway and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Even after the Flying Boats were replaced by land aircraft with the opening of nearby Shannon International Airport in 1947, Irish Coffee remained the official welcoming beverage for passengers stopping over in Ireland. Today, a plaque in the Sheridan Food Pub in the airport pays tribute to Joe Sheridan as the inventor of Irish Coffee.
Travel Writer Brings Irish Coffee to America
One of the early fans of Irish Coffee was travel journalist Stanton Delaplane of the San Francisco Chronicle. He took the recipe back home where he and Jack Koeppler, owner of the Buena Vista bar on Fisherman’s Wharf, tried to re-create the recipe in 1952. Problem was, the cream would not float on top of the coffee as it had in Shannon. Finally, San Francisco Mayor George Christopher, who owned a dairy, discovered that the cream needed to be aged and frothed to make it thicker.
Delaplane often wrote about Irish Coffee, which became so popular in San Francisco that at one time more Irish whiskey was consumed there than in all of Ireland.
Sheridan was invited to work at the Buena Vista preparing Irish Coffee. He stayed in San Francisco, where he died in 1964. His burial site overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge.
Irish Coffee Celebrated Still in Ireland
The town of Foynes in County Limerick honors its heritage as the birthplace of Irish Coffee with an annual Irish Coffee Festival that includes Irish music, parades and lots of Irish Coffee.
The story of Irish Coffee is told at the Foynes Flying Boat Museum where exhibits recall the time when Foynes was the center for air traffic in the North Atlantic. The museum contains a full-scale replica of the Boeing 314 Yankee Clipper Flying Boat and hosts an annual Flying Boat Festival.
Joe Sheridan’s Original Irish Coffee Recipe
Shannon Development, the development body for the airport and entire Shannon region, describes the ingredients in Irish Coffee this way:
- Cream – as rich as an Irish brogue
- Coffee – strong as a friendly hand
- Sugar – sweet as the tongue of a rogue
- Whiskey – smooth as the wit of the land
Joseph Sheridan’s original recipe, according to Shannon Development:
- Heat a whiskey goblet
- Pour in one jigger of whiskey
- Add three cubes of sugar
- Fill with strong, black coffee to within one inch of the rim
- Stir to dissolve sugar
- Top off with whipped cream slightly aerated, so that it floats
- Do not stir after adding cream, as the true flavor is obtained by drinking the hot coffee and Irish whiskey through the cream
Slainte! That’s “cheers” in Ireland.
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