Photo: Irish coffee (Nice) · All credits
Ingredients
- 45 ml Jigger One small side (25 ml) of a standard jigger, plus a tablespoon and a teaspoon. Irish whiskey
- 120 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 120 ml line. Espresso - Strong black coffee, made with a filter or a pot - not an espresso shot
- 10 ml Spoons Two teaspoons. Sugar - Brown sugar if you have it
- 30 ml Jigger One small side (25 ml) of a standard jigger, plus a teaspoon. Double cream - Chilled, and lightly whipped so it floats
- 1 pinch Spoons A pinch taken between finger and thumb - about a quarter of a teaspoon. Nutmeg (optional)
Measured in Millilitres (UK). Sign in to read these in American measures. Print a kitchen card at this size.
What the jigger, the spoons and the jug hold, in millilitres and in fluid ounces, is on the measures reference.
Quick version
- Sweeten hot coffee with sugar, add whiskey, then float cold cream on top.
Method
- Warm a stemmed heatproof glass with hot water and tip it out.
- Dissolve the sugar in the hot coffee in the glass, then stir in the whiskey.
- Whip the chilled cream lightly with a fork until it just thickens but still pours.
- Pour it over the back of a spoon onto the coffee so it sits in a thick layer on top, and grate a little nutmeg over it.
Serve it
Irish Coffee
The story is that a chef called Joe Sheridan made these at Foynes airfield in County Limerick on a filthy winter night in the 1940s for a plane-load of passengers who had been turned back, and when one of them asked whether it was Brazilian coffee he said "no, that's Irish coffee". The glass got a stem because the airfield's crockery was thin and the passengers' hands were cold; it survived because it is genuinely the best way to drink one.
Getting it right
The cream has to float, and there is only one way to make it do that: it must be cold, lightly whipped rather than stiff, and poured slowly over the back of a spoon onto a properly sweet, hot coffee underneath. Sugar is not optional - it is what holds the cream up, and without it the two layers become one muddy drink. Do not stir it either; the pleasure is drinking the hot coffee through the cold cream.
Tasting notes
Hot, sweet and whiskey-warm underneath, with a cold, faintly nutty cap that meets you first. It is a drink for coming in from the rain, and for visitors who claim not to like cocktails.