Irish Coffee (1948); Laughing Trombone; NYPL; NY & Chicago

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:36 PM -0400 8/18/01, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>IRISH COFFEE
>
>    Both OED and M-W have 1950.
>    John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK has:
>
>    A blend of hot coffee, Irish whisky, and whipped cream.
>According to a plaque outside the Buena Vista Bar in San Francisco,
>"America's first Irish coffee was made here in 1952.  It was
>inspirationally invented at Shannon Airport (Ireland) by (chef) Joe
>Sheridan.  It was fortuitously introduced by (newspaper writer) Stan
>Delaplane.  It was nutured to a national institution by (the bar's
>owner) Jack Koeppler."  Sheridan actually created the drink in 1942
>at Foynes Dock, where flying boats docked in World War II.  It was
>promoted as of 1947 at Shannon Airport as an official welcoming
>beverage.
>
>    From Clementine Paddleford's St. Patrick's Day column in the NEW
>YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 17 March 1948, pg. ? (sorry), col. 6:
>
>    A recipe for Irish coffee, the traditonal Gaelic drink as served
>to passengers in the lounge at Shannon AIrport.  A thank-you to
>Maureen Grogan, Pan American Airways gound hostess, for the recipe:
>Place two tablespoons of Irish whisky in a warm glass, add one
>teaspoon sugar, pour in the hot coffee and float two inches of
>whipped cream.  Sip and the whiskey laces through coffee, through
>cream.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps, but I've been to Shannon Airport and San Francisco, and I
prefer to situate Irish coffee in the latter, particularly on a foggy
night.  There's a wonderful science fiction story about alternate
universes, whose name and author I forget (Larry Niven, maybe?),
which crucially features Irish coffee and San Francisco fog, and I
should add that I myself first discovered Irish coffee in Baghdad by
the Bay.  I also like the fact that it's the perfect concoction,
combining as it does the four essential food groups--caffeine,
alcohol, sugar, and fat.

larry