Buena Vista Irish Coffee
The original Irish coffee as perfected at the Buena Vista Cafe on Hyde Street. Not a riff, not an interpretation — THE recipe, unchanged since Stanton Delaplane and Jack Koeppler cracked it.
Ingredients
- 2 sugar cubes
- 1 oz hot water
- 6 oz strong, hot black coffee (Peet's-style dark roast preferred)
- 1.5 oz Tullamore D.E.W. Irish whiskey
- Lightly whipped heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat an Irish coffee glass by filling it with hot water, then discard the water.
- Place 2 sugar cubes in the warm glass and add 1 oz of hot water. Stir until fully dissolved.
- Fill the glass with strong, hot coffee to within 1 inch of the rim.
- Add 1.5 oz Tullamore D.E.W. Irish whiskey and stir briefly to combine.
- Lightly whip heavy cream by hand — it should be thickened and pourable, NOT stiff peaks. It should flow like cold, heavy paint.
- Pour the cream slowly over the back of a spoon held just above the coffee's surface so the cream floats in an even layer on top.
- Do NOT stir after adding the cream. The magic is drinking the hot, sweet, whiskey-laced coffee THROUGH the cold cream.
Glassware: Irish coffee glass (footed, heat-resistant)
Garnish: None — the floating cream IS the garnish
History
In 1952, San Francisco Chronicle travel writer Stanton Delaplane tasted Irish coffee at Foynes airbase in Ireland and brought the idea back to Jack Koeppler at the Buena Vista Cafe. They spent weeks perfecting the cream float — the secret is whipping it just enough to thicken without stiffening, so it floats but you drink through it. The Buena Vista still serves 2,000+ of these a day.