How to Make Irish Coffee: the Pour, the Ratios and the Story Behind the Glass

Where did Irish coffee come from, and how much of the story is solid?

Start with the postcard version. Foynes, on the Shannon estuary in western Ireland, was a transatlantic flying boat base. Joe Sheridan, the head chef of its terminal restaurant, is said to have laced coffee with whiskey for chilled passengers on a stormy winter night in 1943, and the year sometimes appears as "1942 or 1943" in more careful accounts.

Treat the colour with care. The turned-back Pan Am flight, the passenger asking whether this was Brazilian coffee and the reply "No, that's Irish coffee" all come from museum and whiskey-brand storytelling, and the sources we checked cite no document from the period. The firmer part of the timeline comes next: Foynes closed in October 1945, Sheridan moved across the estuary to Rineanna, today's Shannon Airport, and kept serving the drink there.

The American chapter has better dates. Stanton Delaplane, a travel writer at the San Francisco Chronicle, tasted it at Shannon in the early 1950s and brought it to Jack Koeppler, who owned the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco. The bar began serving it on 10 November 1952. Early attempts failed because the cream sank; lightly whipped cream, which floats better, solved it. Sheridan later joined the Buena Vista staff, though sources differ on when. Punch magazine puts the bar's output today at 2,000 to 3,500 Irish coffees a day.

What goes into an Irish coffee?

Four ingredients, nowhere to hide. The measures below follow the IBA sheet, while the recipe at the Foynes flying boat museum calls for "a good measure" of whiskey and brown sugar.

• 50 ml of Irish whiskey. The name is legally protected: matured for at least three years in wooden casks, bottled at 40% ABV or more, and distilled and matured on the island of Ireland.
• 120 ml of hot, strong black coffee. A well-dosed filter brew or a lengthened espresso holds its own against the spirit far better than a delicate light roast.
• 1 teaspoon of sugar, brown if you have it. The Buena Vista uses two white sugar cubes per glass.
• 50 ml of chilled cream, whole and pourable, the kind sold for whipping.

You will also need a heatproof stemmed glass or glass mug holding at least 220 ml, a spoon, and a whisk or a bowl and fork. On the alcohol side: 50 ml of whiskey at 40% ABV contains 20 ml of pure alcohol, so this is a drink for adults, taken in moderation and never before driving.

How do you make Irish coffee, step by step?

Set aside ten minutes, half of it for the coffee. Everything leads to the last pour, so take your time there.

1. Warm the glass. Fill it with boiling water for about 5 seconds, then tip the water out. A cold glass cools the coffee and sinks the cream.
2. Brew 120 ml of strong coffee. Keep it piping hot until the moment it goes into the glass.
3. Add sugar and whiskey. Put 1 teaspoon of sugar and 50 ml of Irish whiskey into the warm glass.
4. Pour in the coffee and stir. Fill to roughly 1 cm below the rim and stir until every grain of sugar has dissolved. Once the cream is on, it never will.
5. Whip the cream lightly. Take 50 ml of cold cream and whisk only until it thickens and runs slowly. No peaks; it has to stay pourable.
6. Float the cream. Hold a spoon, back facing up, just above the coffee and pour the cream onto it slowly, letting the spoon rise with the level.
7. Drink without stirring. Sip the hot coffee and whiskey through the cool cream.

Why does the cream float, and how do you stop it sinking?

Cream floats because it is lighter than hot, sweetened coffee. Whipping lightly traps a little air and lowers its density further without turning it into a stiff topping. That matches what the Buena Vista story describes: lightly whipped cream floats best, while plain cream dives and firm whipped cream sits in clumps.

Sugar plays a quieter part. Dissolved in the coffee, it makes the liquid slightly heavier and gives the cream a firmer base, which is one more reason to stir it in before the cream goes on. The spoon works as a baffle: it breaks the fall of the cream and spreads it into a sheet instead of drilling a hole in the coffee.

Temperature helps too. Cold cream over very hot coffee holds its line longer than cream over lukewarm coffee in a cool glass. Punch reports that the Buena Vista uses cream prepared days ahead, a house habit you do not need to copy at home.

What goes wrong with Irish coffee, and what pairs next to it?

• The cream sinks. It is too runny, or poured too fast or from too high. Whisk a little longer and bring the spoon closer.
• The cream sits in lumps. It was whipped too stiff. Loosen it with a spoonful of unwhipped cream.
• The coffee is weak or lukewarm. The whiskey flattens it. Use a stronger, hotter brew.
• Sugar pools at the bottom. Stir before the cream, never after.
• The glass was cold. Warm it with boiling water first; it is the most skipped step.

For the coffee itself, see our notes on coffee to water ratios by method, the French press brew guide and water for coffee extraction. For a cold, shaken drink at the other end of the spectrum, try the freddo espresso.

Irish coffee: frequently asked questions

Sources

Origin, ratios and the legal definition of Irish whiskey checked against the following sources (accessed 5 October 2026):

• Wikipedia, Irish coffee
• International Bartenders Association, Irish Coffee (official recipe)
• Foynes Flying Boat Museum, original Irish coffee recipe
• Foynes Flying Boat Museum, Joe Sheridan
• Irish Whiskey Museum, the invention and history of Irish coffee
• Jameson, the origin of Irish coffee
• Punch, The Buena Vista Cafe
• Wikipedia, Irish whiskey (legal definition)