The True Story of Irish Coffee: Foynes, 1943

On a stormy winter night in 1943, a flying boat bound for New York gave up on the Atlantic and turned back to Foynes, a small port on the Shannon estuary in the west of Ireland. The cold, tired passengers were brought to the terminal restaurant, where chef Joe Sheridan added Irish whiskey to their hot coffee and floated cream on top. That, according to the Foynes Flying Boat & Maritime Museum, is how Irish coffee was born.

The story is lovely, and the core of it is well supported. But the details come mostly from people who were there telling it years later. Here is what we can say with confidence, what remains lore, and how to make the drink properly, with or without alcohol.

Key takeaways

• Irish coffee is credited to Joe Sheridan, head chef at the Foynes flying-boat terminal; the Foynes museum dates the moment to the winter of 1943.
• The earliest known newspaper mention of the whiskey-and-cream drink at Shannon dates from December 1945.
• San Francisco’s Buena Vista Cafe says travel writer Stanton Delaplane brought the recipe there on November 10, 1952, which helped make it famous in the US.
• The classic recipe has just four ingredients: hot coffee, brown sugar, Irish whiskey and lightly whipped cream.

Foynes: Ireland’s gateway to the Atlantic

Before long-range land planes, transatlantic air travel meant flying boats: large aircraft that took off and landed on water. In the late 1930s and during World War II, Foynes in County Limerick was one of the key European terminals for these flights, with passengers including diplomats, officials and wartime travelers. Crossings were long, noisy and cold, and weather often forced aircraft to turn back.

In 1943, Brendan O’Regan opened a restaurant and coffee shop in the Foynes terminal and hired Joe Sheridan, originally from Castlederg in County Tyrone, to run the kitchen.

The night the drink was born

As the museum tells it, a New York-bound flight left Foynes one winter night in 1943, battled bad weather for hours and turned back. Staff were called in, and Sheridan prepared something to warm the passengers: coffee with Irish whiskey, sweetened, with cream on top. When a passenger asked if it was Brazilian coffee, Sheridan joked that it was Irish coffee. O’Regan reportedly praised the result, and it went on the menu.

How solid is the story?

Food-history researcher Barry Popik has gathered the early written evidence, and it fits the general picture with some caveats:

• The whiskey drink is first found in print in a December 1945 newspaper report from Shannon, which mentions “Irish or Gaelic coffee” made with whiskey and cream.
• By 1946–1950, several American reporters describe the drink being served to travelers at Shannon.
• In a 1955 interview, Sheridan himself gave a different, more humorous version, saying he first made it for his own hangover and called it Gaelic coffee.

So the safest summary is this: Joe Sheridan is credited with creating the drink at Foynes in the early 1940s, the museum’s date is the winter of 1943, and the cold-passengers story is the traditional account rather than a documented event with a precise date.

From Foynes to Shannon

When the war ended, land planes took over and the flying-boat era faded. Transatlantic traffic moved to the new airport at Shannon on the other side of the estuary, which opened as a transatlantic base in 1945. Sheridan’s drink moved with it. Shannon became famous among travelers for its Irish coffee, and that is where most of those early reporters tasted it.

San Francisco and the Buena Vista

The drink’s American breakthrough is usually credited to Stanton Delaplane, a Pulitzer Prize-winning travel writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. According to the Buena Vista Cafe, Delaplane tasted Irish coffee at Shannon and, on November 10, 1952, challenged owner Jack Koeppler to recreate it. Their first attempts failed because the cream kept sinking. Koeppler eventually traveled to Shannon to study it, and, with help from a San Francisco dairy owner, the bar settled on cream aged for 48 hours and frothed to just the right thickness so it would float.

Two notes of caution. First, this account comes from the Buena Vista itself. Second, American newspapers were writing about the drink before 1952, and Delaplane later said he claimed only a modest share of the credit. What is not in doubt is that the Buena Vista made Irish coffee a San Francisco institution and helped spread it across the US.

Timeline

Classic Irish coffee recipe

For adults of legal drinking age only. Please drink responsibly, and never drink and drive.

Ingredients (1 drink)

Steps

1. Warm the glass. Fill a heatproof stemmed glass with hot water, wait a minute, then empty it.
2. Dissolve the sugar. Add the sugar and the hot coffee and stir until fully dissolved. The sugar helps the cream float.
3. Add the whiskey. Stir it in, leaving about half an inch (1 cm) of space at the top.
4. Whip the cream lightly. Shake or whisk cold cream until it just thickens but still pours. Stiff cream sits like a cap; liquid cream sinks.
5. Float the cream. Pour it gently over the back of a warm spoon so it settles in a layer on top.
6. Do not stir. Drink the hot coffee through the cool cream.

Tips

• Use a medium roast with chocolate and nutty notes; very bright, acidic coffees can clash with the cream.
• Brew it strong. A weak coffee gets lost under whiskey and cream.
• If the cream sinks, it is either too thin or the coffee lacks sugar.

Alcohol-free Irish coffee

Make the recipe exactly as above, but replace the whiskey with 1.5 fl oz (45 ml) of extra hot coffee and a few drops of vanilla extract. For more of the oaky, caramel character, brew it with a barrel-aged coffee. This version is suitable for anyone who does not drink alcohol, though it still contains caffeine.

Lighter or dairy-free option

Use less sugar and replace the cream with a thick oat-based whipping cream or coconut cream, lightly whipped. Plant-based creams float less reliably, so pour slowly over a spoon.

Choosing your coffee

For a classic version, our House Blend is a smooth medium roast of Central and South American coffees with nutty, sweet chocolate and mild citrus notes, a reliable base under whiskey and cream. For the alcohol-free version, our Whiskey Barrel Aged coffee is a single-origin Guatemala rested for 30 days in a bourbon barrel before roasting, giving oak, vanilla and caramel notes with no alcohol in the coffee. Both are roasted 1–5 days before delivery. Explore more blends in our Blend collection.

Irish coffee FAQ

Who invented Irish coffee?

Joe Sheridan, chef at the Foynes flying-boat terminal in Ireland, is credited with creating it. The Foynes museum dates it to the winter of 1943.

Why does the cream float on Irish coffee?

Lightly whipped cream is less dense than the hot, sweetened coffee. Dissolving sugar in the coffee makes it denser, which helps the cream sit on top.

Should you stir Irish coffee?

Traditionally, no. You drink the hot coffee through the layer of cool cream.

Did the Buena Vista invent Irish coffee?

No. The Buena Vista in San Francisco popularized it in the US from 1952, but the drink was created in Ireland.

Sources

1. Foynes Flying Boat & Maritime Museum. The Origin of Irish Coffee.
2. The Buena Vista. The Irish Coffee Story.
3. Barry Popik. Irish Coffee (Gaelic Coffee). The Big Apple.

Facts checked in October 2026.

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