“This is the cocktail that gave the Irish whiskey category a lifeline,” Kilbeggan Distilling Co. U.S. Brand Ambassador Michael Egan once told me. “Before that, the industry was on its knees.” The legend of the spirit’s revival starts at the Foynes Airport in midwest Ireland in 1942, where a seaplane on its way from New York to Rome ran into engine trouble and landed. A chef at the airport, Joe Sheridan, whipped up a hot drink of coffee, cream, Irish whiskey and sugar. One passenger, a San Francisco newspaper writer named Stanton Delaplane, became obsessed with this “Gaelic coffee,” and his passion eventually led to the drink’s recreation at SF’s Buena Vista Cafe a decade later. Even if the drink remains more of a U.S. staple, you can certainly find variations throughout Ireland.
