After soliciting answerable questions from myriad colleagues and cohorts, the Essefficist has some doozies to work with this week. (But don't let that stop you from sending in some of your own.) Having our pick of the litter, we felt it was only fitting to kick off March with an Irish-themed question, what with St. Patrick's Day less than three weeks away and all.
So let us now return to the barren moors of the windswept hamlet of Berkeley, whence hails this pancake:
Hey Essefficist,
I once visited the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco and they seemed to be laying claim to the invention of the Irish Coffee. I was skeptical, but when I visited Dublin, Ireland and ordered an Irish Coffee, the bartender, muttering something like "a waste of perfectly good whiskey," proceeded to make the drink with Sanka, which is so wrong I can't even begin to describe why. So what's the story? Is the SF version the real deal, or does the Emerald Isle really have a version that predates the Buena Vista's? And if so, did Americans screw up the recipe to make it palatable to Yanks? I'm going to be pouring Baileys into espresso until I know the scoop.
Mr. Drunken Jitters
Hey, Mr. DJ, cap that Baileys, 'cause we've got the lowdown for you. Your Irish bartender seems to have drunken a bit too much whiskey himself; Irish Coffee--hot coffee, sugar, whiskey, and fresh whipped cream in a warm stemmed glass--is in fact Irish, not San Franciscan. While it is true that the Buena Vista Cafe had a lot to do with popularizing the drink, they did not actually invent it (nor do they claim to have done so). Irish Coffee was actually invented around 1942 by a chef named Joe Sheridan at a restaurant in the air terminal in Foynes, a seaport in the west of Ireland and destination and stopover for early transatlantic flights, near the current site of Shannon Airport. Passengers would disembark freezing and miserable after up to eighteen hours in the frigid non-pressurized cabins of the flying boats, or seaplanes, that made the trip in those days. Sheridan concocted the drink to warm them up and settle them down. (It should be noted that even if the idea of mixing coffee and whiskey may not appeal to some, like your surly bartender, DJ, it certainly isn't a waste, especially if you're suffering a stroke.)
So why does everyone think that Irish Coffee was invented here? And why is it associated so strongly with the Buena Vista Cafe?
One night in 1952, Stanton Delaplane, a Chronicle travel writer and columnist who had won a Pulitzer in 1942, was at the Buena Vista regaling the bar's owner, Jack Knoeppler, with tales of the hot drink he'd had at the airport in the west of Ireland. So they tried to make it. It took no small amount of tinkering--the cream kept falling to the bottom and it didn't taste quite right--and even a return trip to Shannon for Delaplane and a conversation with Sheridan himself to get it right, but eventually they did. Delaplane wrote about it in his column, which was widely syndicated, and the Irish Coffee and the Buena Vista both became famous. Not surprisingly, the story got twisted around a little bit and before you knew it, the Irish Coffee came to be perceived as the alcoholic version of the English Muffin or French Fry. (Well, actually it does seem like french fries were made by the French, but you get the point.)
In researching this question, we came across some conflicting information about Joe Sheridan and his relation to the Buena Vista Cafe. Some sources claim that he was offered a job at the bar and possibly brought Irish Coffee there himself. This seemed curious, but we couldn't get a clear take on it, so we called the Buena Vista, where we talked to Michel Carden, the bar's general manager, who told us that Sheridan did not work there, although he did visit at some point in the mid-50's, and he did actually work in a restaurant in downtown San Francisco and was even buried at a cemetery in the Oakland hills after his death in 1962. So there!
Just to make sure we've done our sworn duty and you know more than you could possibly need to about this subject, here are some other interesting facts about the Buena Vista and Irish Coffee:
- The bar serves as many as 2000 Irish Coffees per day.
- It has served an estimated 3.4 million Irish Coffees since 1952.
- It's the largest single consumer of Irish whiskey in the country and has its own blend of whiskey bottled for it at Cooley Distillery in County Louth.
- In 2003, the Buena Vista's bar manager, Frank Siletti, was the first non-Irishman to be named World Irish Coffee Making Champion at the annual Irish Coffee Festival in Foynes. (This year's festival will be held in mid-July.)
Lastly, wanna see real Irish Coffees being made by a real Buena Vista barman? Go here.
In related news, we hear that you can e-mail us your questions about San Francisco or your own exciting life and quite possibly, if they're good ones, receive even more info on the everyday things going on around you all the time (or just post 'em in the comments). And remember, E equals emcee squared.
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mmmmm. So thirsty...
French Fries are from Belgium.
Have you no sense of humor, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of humor? Let us just quote from the french fry site linked above: "The identity of this individual is unknown; the French claim it was one of their countrymen, while the Belgians fiercely hold that it was one of their own who first frenched a fry. Expert opinion on this matter is divided as well. Whatever the case, by the 1830's deep fried potatoes had become a popular taste sensation in both France and Belgium." Whatever. Somebody oughta french your fry, buddy.