Just as there is no single "coffee" or "whiskey," there are countless varieties of Irish Coffee. It’s all about balance and the selection of ingredients. Theresa Prüssen, Victoria Arthofer, and Nicole Battefeld share their recipes here. What they have in common is that they are all national champions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
On a foggy February day in 2015 in Oslo, I learned that Irish Coffee is probably the most difficult and yet the most comforting coffee drink there is. I was judging the “Coffee in Good Spirits” competition, the barista discipline where coffee is mixed with alcohol to create innovative and delicious cocktails. The competition consists of several parts, one of which is the Irish Coffee.
Well, you might think, Irish Coffee is really just coffee, cream, sugar, and whiskey—each is delicious on its own, so all the ingredients together must be even better. Well, until that day in February 2015, I thought the same.
A participant brewed a filter coffee from Panama, of the Gesha variety, as the base for her Irish Coffee. The coffee was naturally processed and tasted intensely of papaya and jasmine. She used palm syrup for sweetness, mixed it with a smoky Japanese whisky, and topped the drink with slightly acidified cream. I was stunned. Up until that moment, I hadn't realized that this drink, which looks visually unattractive compared to other cocktails, could be so complex and surprising.
What is Irish Coffee?
Irish Coffee consists of just four ingredients: coffee as a base, mixed with whiskey, all sweetened, and topped with whipped cream. There is hardly any other mixed drink that can taste so varied.
It sounds like all Irish Coffees would taste similar because they always consist of the same ingredients. However, the interesting thing about this drink is that every single component can be chosen so precisely that it reaches perfect balance and brings out new flavor notes.
The Glass
According to legend, classic Irish Coffee recipes are based on a glass with a 6-ounce filling capacity, i.e., about 180ml. In the aforementioned Coffee in Good Spirits competition, glasses with a 240ml filling capacity are used.
It probably depends on how thirsty you are and the outside temperatures as to which size you prefer. The glass is a classic goblet. This way, the glass can be heated while the base is being turned. An Irish Coffee only looks good if the glass is filled to the brim, and that requires a lot of coffee.
The Coffee Type: Filter Coffee
The drink stands out—and I will come back to this a few times—because of its balance. We must also pay attention to balance when it comes to the coffee itself. Just because coffee is one of several ingredients, we shouldn't just use any random coffee. Similarly, we recommend not working with espresso. Espresso or lungos are generally too strong and would dominate the drink and, well, throw it out of balance.
Filter-brewed coffee proves to be the perfect ingredient here. Filter coffee adds volume to the drink and transports finer, more complex notes into the overall construction. Espresso or similarly intense drinks are not as delicate and would mask the finer notes in the whisky. However, the filter coffee should be brewed slightly stronger, i.e., overdosed, than usual. After all, it will be significantly diluted afterwards. We recommend at least 7g of coffee per 100ml of water, instead of the usual 6g of coffee per 100ml of water.
The Coffee Taste: Experimenting
During my awakening experience in Oslo, the participant brewed an extremely characteristic filter coffee, which she then used in her Irish Coffee. A complex coffee alone, however, does not make an Irish Coffee better if the other ingredients are not equally precisely selected.
We have found that well-developed filter coffees are best suited as a base. Very light coffees tend to get lost in terms of flavor. In our filter coffee language, “well-developed” means that we would roast them 10 seconds longer than other filter coffees.
Characteristic coffees that are very floral or fruity can be just as much fun as more nutty-chocolatey coffees. Here, too, the goal is to find the balance with the other ingredients. A peaty whisky, for example, harmonizes less well with a very fruity Kenyan filter coffee. Younger whiskies with lighter tones, on the other hand, go very well with more floral coffees.
There are certainly no rules on how coffees should harmonize with whisky. Experimenting is the motto. It is also recommended to choose a filter coffee and then look for a matching whisky. A rather exciting task, which is best done on a weekend.
Theresa Prüssen emphasizes several times that she finds acid-focused coffees less suitable, as the alcohol highlights the acidity in the coffee even more. Theresa works with sweet, balanced filter coffees.
The Sweetener
Anyone who automatically thinks of sugar when they hear “sweet” is invited to try something else for a change. The sweet component serves to make the drink more balanced and to soften the high alcohol content of the whiskey a little.
Syrups not only sweeten the drink but also give it a softer texture. From simple sugar syrup to date or palm syrup, there are various methods for combining sweetness with texture.
Muscovado sugar, stevia, molasses, honey—everything that is sweet serves its purpose and invites you to experiment. But there shouldn't be too much sweetness either—balance should definitely be maintained. And the drink is already quite heavy, so it doesn't need that much sugar.
The Whiskey
Just like with coffee, we find a variety of different interpretations and flavor profiles in whiskey. If you start clicking through different whiskey blogs, you will quickly realize that the whiskey world is just as colorful as the coffee world.
Whisky connoisseurs distinguish between woody, malty, floral, fruity, peaty, tart, cereal, grassy, fruity, earthy, and wine-like flavor profiles www.maltwhisky.de.
Before you dive straight into tasting, it makes sense to familiarize yourself with the basics of whiskey knowledge. It is best to choose four completely different whiskies—fruity, peaty, grainy, and X—and try to combine them with a coffee later. This gives you a basic assumption of what fits together. Then you can get into the details, which are no less fun but require a bit of physical robustness.
The Cream
The cream as the crowning glory of the drink is also the first impression when drinking. Not only is the temperature crucial here, which we will discuss shortly, but also the creaminess and, of course, the taste.
Fresh cream tastes different from long-life UHT and ESL creams. Even a hint of age-related aromas, which make the cream a bit rancid, cardboard-like, or too buttery, can be distracting.
Here, too, it pays to try out different types and brands of cream, shake them, and just taste them as they are. Yes, no one said the path to the perfect Irish Coffee is a walk in the park. It is quite demanding.
Nicole Battefeld uses coconut cream for the topping instead of cow's milk cream—definitely a must-try.
The Temperature
The most exciting element of Irish Coffee for me is the temperature contrast. When your lips meet the glass, you first feel the cool cream. The flatter you hold the glass, the more the warm-hot whiskey-coffee mixture spills out from under the cream.
The greater the temperature discrepancy, the greater the surprise effect. But be careful: the cream shouldn't be so cold that your teeth start to ache, nor should the coffee be so hot that someone burns their tongue. The goal here is to get as close to the extremes as possible. It’s best to measure this with a simple digital thermometer.
The Mixing Ratio
Even if all the ingredients are right, that unfortunately doesn't mean the end product must be really delicious. My favorite cake, a Swedish buttermilk cake, is only really tasty if the right ratio is chosen. Even though the individual ingredients are all delicious, that doesn't mean they harmonize.
To find the right mixing ratio, it's best to brew a large filter coffee and put 50g each into espresso cups. For the first cup, you would now add 5g of whiskey, for the second 10g, etc. This way you will understand which ratio works for you, how much coffee flavor, and how much alcohol it should be. Since you are working with ratios here, you can easily scale them for larger quantities afterwards.
The Balance
Once you have your best ingredients together, the most exciting phase is just beginning. A little more of this, a little less of that, a little hotter, a little cooler—finding the right balance is great fun.
It is worth thinking of the drink as an alcoholic cocktail rather than a coffee cocktail. Bartenders always start from the best possible balance. The coffee doesn't have to be in the foreground, and neither does the whiskey. In the best case, the two products complement each other and enter into a synergy, so that new flavor notes are created that we hadn't even thought of until now.
The legend of the invention of the Irish Coffee
It is impossible to say exactly where Irish Coffee gets its name. Most anecdotes, however, aim at the fact that a bartender named Joe Sheridan in Ireland in 1942 wanted to cheer up a group of stranded air passengers. Apparently, he mixed coffee with whiskey because everyone was freezing. A guest is said to have asked Sheridan if it was Brazilian coffee. The bartender supposedly replied: “No, it’s Irish Coffee.”
The coffee may have provided some warmth to the stranded passengers, and it still does today. However, the refinement of the recipe is not finished but goes hand-in-hand with the development of the products.
Recipes from Barista Champions
Three Coffee in Good Spirits champions share their recipes for their perfect Irish Coffee here. Theresa Prüssen became Swiss champion in 2016, Nicole Battefeld from Germany was a magnificent fifth at the 2019 World Championships. Victoria Arthofer from Austria is a two-time Austrian champion.
Theresa Prüssen
In conversation with Theresa (see video above), it became clear that for her, Irish Coffee is a sophisticated cocktail and has nothing to do with Kafi Schnapps or Kafi Lutz, where it’s actually just about the alcohol.
For Theresa, Irish Coffee is a playground because she can always try out new ingredients.
Theresa's recipe
- Brew filter coffee with the Clever Dripper: 7g per 100ml of water
- 400ml total coffee quantity
- 8cl whiskey with 2cl sugar syrup (combination of honey, sugar syrup, cinnamon, and orange peel) heated to 80°C
- Pour coffee and whiskey into the glass
- Shake 80ml of cool cream and gently place it on the surface using a spoon
Nicole Battefeld
Nicole Battefeld reached fifth place at the 2019 Coffee in Good Spirits World Championships. Such an achievement is no coincidence—she describes her path there in an exciting and detailed way in her blog.
Nicole's recipe is really interesting because she uses coconut cream instead of cow's milk cream. I can only imagine (so far) what that tastes like, but it definitely sounds very delicious.
Nicole's recipe
- 55g coffee (Jasper 1211 CM from Ethiopia)
- 400ml water at 93°C, prepared in the Moccamaster
- 15g dark honey and 15ml simple sugar syrup
- 30ml Hedonism Whisky
- Topped with cold coconut cream instead of cow's milk cream
Victoria Arthofer
Victoria Arthofer is an Austrian Coffee in Good Spirits champion and runs the café-bar “Das kleine Schwarze” in Steyr. She has also revealed her favorite recipe and written down her personal thoughts on Irish Coffee.
Why Irish Coffee?
“Irish Coffee just reminds me of my alchemy time in Salzburg (“where it all began”)—and it’s just incredibly fun to prepare—because an Irish Coffee also just looks great when it's finished. The best part is the first sips through the cold cream into the warm, sweet coffee-alcohol mixture.”
Victoria's recipe
- Aeropress inverted
- 26g – medium-fine / EK46 setting 6 ground
- 165 ml water (adjust temperature depending on the coffee, 90-92°C)
- Approx. 1 minute extraction time
- 2 small teaspoons of sugar (cane sugar or pure white sugar)
- 3.5-4 cl whiskey
Preheat glasses and whiskey (water bath)
Whipped cream (always depends on what's available locally; fat is good, good quality!! – shake until nicely creamy, optionally through a small sieve, but I don't really do that in my “everyday coffee shop life”)
- Coffee:
- I like to use fruity/sweet naturals – once I had a sample from Süssmund, Panama Anaerobic, that was pretty, pretty cool!
- I think they also have a better chance of “shining” through the alcohol and sugar.
The Irish Coffee can definitely be “strong,” but I don't like the “too sharp whiskies” that much; I tend to be more on the “round-sweet” side.
- Classically, however, Jameson (Black Barrel) works great (even for our everyday coffee shop life).
- If it should be something special: Bruichladdich, Organic
The Opinion of the World Championship Judge: Nina Rimpl
Nina Rimpl is the National Coordinator of SCA Switzerland and has been a sensory judge at international coffee championships for several years. She particularly likes the Coffee in Good Spirits competition, where Irish Coffee is one of the drinks to be served.
Nina says clearly about Irish Coffee:
an underestimated drink, unfortunately prepared terribly almost everywhere.
Nina Rimpl, Sensory Judge
Nina continues: “Irish Coffee is fantastic at the right moments. Autumn/winter, late afternoon, after a long walk, something between a drink/coffee/warm-up/dessert. The Irish Coffee consists of a few ingredients, the most important thing: the balance, or the ratio of the ingredients. It’s not about the creativity of the ingredients.”
And further:
A classic coffee cocktail, which can be well associated with specialty coffee, as one can beautifully bring the characteristics of single origins into synergy with the remaining ingredients.
Nina Rimpl, SCA Coordinator Switzerland
But how does Nina actually judge an Irish Coffee?
“First, very importantly, the temperature difference between cold cream and the very warm rest of the drink. When you bring the glass to your mouth, the lip touches the cream, the cream slowly makes its way into the mouth, and suddenly, at a certain angle of the glass, the quite warm liquid with a completely different viscosity penetrates, and the alcohol burns minimally in the mouth. Not too sweet; the alcohol must be recognizable, and the character of the coffee as well. A “normal” filter recipe is rarely suitable; the drink gets a watery character, the coffee must be quite intense/dense to unfold its character.”
Secondly, the combination of ingredients is crucial for Nina:
“I was allowed to judge the Coffee in Good Spirits World Championship final twice and drank incredibly great Irish Coffees there. Complex, round, multi-layered, flattering. It’s a pity that as a judge, you only drink 2 sips on stage. I remember Dan Fellows’ IC, which was announced as a sticky toffee pudding and reminded me exactly of that feeling of Christmas and the spices.”
