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Irish Coffee: It's All in the Cream

In Ireland a few weeks ago, I had Irish Coffee three times in as many days. Irish Coffee was invented in Ireland and is credited to a bar at the Shannon airport. Then it was recreated in San Francisco at the Buena Vista. Its popularity in the US helped it travel back to Ireland where became popular around the country. 

At the Chapter One restaurant in Dublin, they have the most elaborate preparation of the Irish Coffee in town. They add Jameson Irish Whiskey and 2 tablespoons brown sugar to a pan and caramelize it for 10 minutes and grate fresh nutmeg on top. They add half the amount of coffee, then light the pan on fire for just a second and blow it out. They add the other half the coffee then pour it into the glass.

Then they add the cream on top. Unlike the other Irish Coffees I've had, the cream was fairly warm as opposed to refrigerator-cold. Most of the fuss of an Irish Coffee seems to be about the cream. I address this in last week's post on FineCooking.com.

It turns out different countries have conflicting definitions for cream, and even in the US you have to know the difference between "whipped" and "whipping" cream to get it right. 

The good news is, once you buy the right cream you don't have to whip it very much yourself- just don't stir the coffee first, and pour it over the back of a spoon. More info is in the post here.

Recommended Dublin Bars and Pubs

It turns out I went to a lot of pubs and cocktail bars in Dublin. Here were my favorites, should you ever find yourself there.

Pubs

• The Long Hall- gorgeous
• Bruxelles - fun
• Kehoe's - classic

Cocktails

• Exchequer - more of a restaurant though
• Bar with No Name - hipster party
• Harry's on the Green - high-volume American bar
• SABA - possibilities

Just to See It

• Cafe En Seine - ornate
• Mercantile Hotel - indoor plaza
• Shelbourne - fancy

Drinking in Dublin, Part II

Continued from yesterday's post, here are more bars I visited on my recent trip to Dublin with Jameson Irish Whiskey.

The Doheny & Nesbitt is a traditional pub dating back to 1867. When I was coming in from the airport, my driver told me that there was a recent change in government in Ireland, and that would be the spot to go if you wanted to see politicians crying into their beers. Sounded good to me! We visited a couple of days after that and did not see any crying politicians; mostly people on dates, but the bar was nice.

Next we went to O'Donoghue's, a pub with traditional Irish musicians playing. I suppose if you like that sort of thing it would be good.

We also went to Cafe En Sein, locally known as "Cafe Insane." The website does a pretty good job of describing it:

A series of bars spanning 3 floors, the soaring interior of Café en Seine is amazing with a 3-storey atrium culminating in beautiful glass-panelled ceilings, 40 foot trees, enormous art nouveau glass lanterns, and statues among its many amazing features.

It's a massive space crammed with statues, Tiffany-esque lamps, and lots of iron work and tile. I should probably think it's tacky but I loved it. While we were there dance music was playing so it's probably clubby when it's crowded. 

 We also stopped by the Horseshoe Bar in the Shelbourne Hotel. In one of the fanciest hotels in town is the famous Horseshoe Bar. We thought that we were in it, but looking at pictures online I think we were actually in the main restuarant/lounge- maybe I should have guessed because the bar wasn't shaped like a horseshoe. It was closing time so we didn't have time for more than a beer anyway. Next time...

We had dinner at the Michelin-starred Chapter One restaurant. The cocktail menu isn't online but to my recollection it was a short list of classics. Nice bar area though.

Another night I met Paul Lambert at the Mercantile Hotel Bar. I seem to recall a cocktail menu but I had a beer as I was hungry. The menu isn't online. Anyway, the bar area is two or three floors of an old wooden hotel lobby, with live performances somewhere inside. I loved the look of the place and would like the see the rooms on day.

Next we stopped into Peadar Kearney's, a traditional pub where there was a sports match on the television that everyone was watching so we were mostly quiet.

After that, we visited Shebeen Chic, a pub named after ilegal country bars people would have in their sheds. The place had a look of a quirky coffee house with mismatched tables and chairs and lots of stuff on the walls. It was too early in the day to get a feel for the vibe of the place at night.

Moving on we hit up Exchequer, a hip restaurant with high-end pub fare. The drink menu had some more tempting flavor combinations to me - clove/lime syrup, rhubarb bitters, and black tea liqueur. I had drink with rum, lime, clove syrup, bitters, and amaretto.

After this, we stopped into a pub called International Bar for a quick bite to eat. It was unremarkable except for the very nice bartender who managed to feed a vegetarian despite having to make the sandwich himself.

Then it was on to Long Hall, a gorgeous old but fancy bar with red carpet, dark woods, and antiques about. I really liked the place and that it was mostly full with older people on Saturday night. Many of the bars were, actually. That's one of the things I liked best about Dublin - there's not an age limit to drinking in bars.

And finally, my last stop on my trip was one of my favorites: The Bar with No Name. In this big wooden hotel building that seems like it takes up a block, there is a large downstairs bar, but that's not where the party's at. You walk down the street and enter at the sign of the snail. (Some people call this place the Snail Bar. The bartenders call it Raf's Bar for Rafael the bartender.)

Upstairs, it's like a Victorian apartment where you planned a party so you pushed most the furniture up against the walls. It looked like a hipster party in there, with people hanging out lazily on the couches next to each other or standing and talking. Except for the two bars, it could have been someone's house party. The cocktail menu, which is not online as far as I can tell, was full of simple, classic, appealing cocktails- I seem to recall a Southside, for example. Raf said he's trying to help train the local palate to be more adventurous.

We didn't hang out in the main rooms, but walked through the hotel hallway to another smaller and quieter bar supposedly for hotel guests where we ran into more bartenders. There we had a Fish House Punch made by Aaron wall, poured from a tea pot into teacups. 

In my next post, I'll try to sum up some of this into a shorter post of my favorites.

Drinking in Dublin, Part I

A couple weeks ago I was in Dublin, Ireland with Jameson Irish Whiskey. While there I made sure to check out all the pubs and cocktail bars I could, because that's what I do. My hosts were Aaron Wall on one night and Paul Lambert on another- thanks guys!

I was staying at the Fitzwilliam Hotel, so that's where we began, and several other nights in Dublin that's where I ended up. Most of the pubs close early- midnightish- and even the places with late-night licenses were closed during the week, but the hotel will serve you all night long, it turns out. Me like.

From there we went to Harry's Bar, aka Harry's on the Green, across from the Gaiety Theatre. It is basically a high-volume version of an American bar that you'd find in hotels around the world. I was there when there were only about six other people in the bar, but you could tell with two separate bars and the way the space was set up it was built to hold a lot of people.

It was at Harry's I saw the bartender create the Fussiest Mojito in the World: In a super-tall Collins glass, he added about four lime slices and muddled them with sugar as you would make a Cairpirinha. Then he added a fistful of mint and pressed it with his bar spoon. Then he added ice and alternated pouring in rum and soda water while stirring. Then he packed it overflowing with more crushed ice, and garnished it with a lime wedge, a sprig of mint, and a float of dark rum on top.

Later I was told that people expect Mojitos to be made this way in Dublin, with limes muddled into the bottom of the glass, so even when making them with lime juice some bartenders will throw in a lime wedge in the bottom as a decoy.

From there we hit up SABA, a Thai and Vietnamese restaurant with a progressive bar program initially designed by Paul Lambert. There I had the Say Say cocktail, made with muddled cherry tomatoes, St. Germain, pomegranate syrup, and lemon.  St. Germain and tomatoes work well together - who knew?

The bartender there was also experimenting with some molecular mixology techniques. He let us try spheres of cucumber puree mixed with sweet chilies that were delicious.

From there, we hit up a couple of traditional pubs. First (and third, we came back later) was Bruxelles, a locally-infamous international saloon with a statue of the guitarist from Thin Lizzy out front. On the top floor it has elements of a sports bar with flags of many countries and funny but take-no-B.S. bartenders. There are two more attached bars: the rock and roll Flander's Bar in the basement, and Zodiac Bar, the former women's bar that opened when bars integrated (in the 1960's!).

I came back to Bruxelles another night, Friday I think, and it was packed and ridiculous. People were singing along to a mix of 1990's music, drinking heavily (mostly Heineken, boo) and having a raucous time.

We also stopped into John Kehoe's, a very old and traditional pub. In the front of the room it has a "snug," a little section separated from the main bar with a window to the end of the bar for service. This was also from before bars were integrated between men and women- the women's entrance.

Down the length of the bar were wooden dividers every 10 feet or so. (You can see one in the picture below with the hazy glass in it.) I really liked this design element: it makes you feel like your little space is more intimate even when standing at the bar.

Tune in tomorrow for more Dublin bars.

Jameson Irish Whiskey Distillery Visit

In early February I visited the Jameson Irish Whiskey distillery - actually two of them.

The original Jameson distillery is in Dublin, but it is no longer made there. In 1971 it moved to the Middleton distillery in Cork. The reason is because in the late 1960's Irish Distillers was formed, a merger of Jameson, Powers, and Cork distilleries.

In Dublin there is a visitors' center and restaurant. We went there first. I've got to admit, they did a really good job making a non-working distillery look working, using dioramas and original distillery parts but with fake ingredients pumping through them.

The next day we went to the new distillery in Cork. But actually it's the new-new distillery, located next to the old one.

Here we skipped the typical tour in favor of an in-depth one. 

Jameson Fun Facts

• Triple-distilled, as opposed to most scotch's twice-distilled
• The old pot still here is gargantuan, probably one of the largest in the world. That is no longer used in favor of two wash stills half the size- that are still pretty huge.
• All of the pot-still whisky made here is made on the same four stills: two wash stills, 1 feints still, and one spirit still
• There are also several column stills as Jameson is blended whiskey.
• Redbreast (available in US) and Green Spot (not) are all pot-still whiskeys.
• They also make Middleton, Powers, and Paddy here, plus a couple other brands
• They distill Tullamore Dew here under contract
• Most Jameson uses ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Some (Rarest Reserve) uses ex-port barrels
• Sherry butts are prepared by putting oloroso sherry (that has already aged the minimum of three years to be called sherry) into new casks for two years to prepare them.
• Their pot-still spirit is a combination of malted and unmalted barley. If it's all pot-still whiskey, it is called "Irish pot still." Bushmills is "Irish malt" as it uses all malted barley.
• They don't make a big deal about yeast strains here - use a "standard distilling yeast"
• We nosed 100% malted distillate vs. malt/unmalt blend. The malted smelled more fruity and esthery than the blend
• Due to the weather, there isn't a great temperature variation in the barrel warehouses, and only 2% angel's share per year
• Jameson and Jameson 12 have opposite ratios of pot to column distilled spirit in them, though they don't say the ratios.
• Jameson 18 tastes like green caramel apples
• Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve tastes like the inside of banana peels, coconut flakes, pineapple gum arabic. It is the yumz.
• Only before 1800 was Irish whisky peated, and much of that would have been poteen rather than whisky. Around 1800 large-scale production became legal in Ireland and everyone moved to using coal rather than peat. So really in modern Irish whisky making there is no tradition of peating.