From Cocktail to Cookie

Since March 1st, I had been thinking about what Saint’s Patrick’s day treat I wanted to create. Did I want to make something green, something traditional, or something with booze, and it occurred to me to do an Irish coffee inspired dessert. We have Irish coffee at work and I was inspired. I thought about the flavors and decided a chocolate chip cookie was a great base. I came up with a brown butter Irish coffee chocolate chip cookie. The nutty notes from the brown butter, earthy flavor from the coffee, sweetness from the chocolate, and the kick from the whisky all compliment each other and make a nice treat. Before we get to the recipe, I wanted to give a brief history of the Irish coffee.

Our story begins in 1942 in an airport base restaurant outside of Limerick, Ireland. Joe Sheridan is said to have invented the cocktail, there is much debate whether he was one of the cooks or the chef at the restaurant, but he is credited with inventing Irish coffee. According to Colleen Graham,

The story goes that an evening flight returned to the airport after a failed attempt to reach New York during a winter storm. Sheridan mixed up the first round of Irish coffees for those stranded passengers. One surprised American asked, “Hey Buddy, is this Brazilian coffee?” “No,” said Joe, “that’s Irish coffee.” ¹

There are a few versions of this story, but this one seems to be the general narrative. It is said that the cream and sugar were added for an American palate in mind and others as a treat for the flight delay. As many travelers became introduced to this concoction, Stanton Delaplane, a travel writer, became obsessed with the drink. In 1952, Delaplane is credited with bringing Irish coffee to the United States, and brought the cocktail to Jack Koeppler, bartender at the Buena Vista Hotel in San Francisco and persuaded him to recreate it.² Koeppler was unable to keep the cream from sinking into the coffee and sought out Sheridan to learn the correct way to make an Irish coffee. Sheridan’s recipe for the drink was:

Cream – Rich as an Irish Brogue
Coffee – Strong as a Friendly Hand
Sugar – Sweet as the tongue of a Rogue
Whiskey – Smooth as the Wit of the Land ³

The Sheridan and Buena Vista Hotel story is widely known, but there are others who believe that the Irish coffee was invented prior to 1942 and introduced to the United States in New York first and not San Francisco. According to Kelly O’ Mara, “ The first instance I can find of the Irish coffee coming to the U.S. is the food critic for the New York Herald Tribune, named Clementine Paddleford. For her St. Patrick’s Day column in 1948, she talks up the Irish coffee…”⁴ There is also talk that a pub and not the airport restaurant developed the Irish coffee first overseas. Even though its origins or when it first arrived in the United States are up for debate the one thing they do agree on is the recipe, and that it is delicious. Now let’s get back to the cookie recipe I mentioned earlier. Below is the recipe for the brown butter irish coffee chocolate chip cookies. I hope you guys like it.