Who Asked Me?

Two from the author's collection

Of all the news items through which one might ascertain that he’s led a misspent life, I tripped across this SF Chronicle piece by Warren Hinckle today – an exposé on the state of the endangered Irish coffee glass in San Francisco. No, it wasn’t reflecting on all the Irish coffees I’ve consumed that brought me to this conclusion, nor the fact that Hinckle had beaten me to the scoop, but rather that I was already aware of the difficulties in procuring a proper vessel for the drink and had actually gathered empirical evidence myself.

I’d been trying to make a “correct” Irish coffee for a long while, and even before moving to the east coast, but had no idea how elusive finding the drink in its proper state could be. A lot of New York bars claim to make them in the winter and even post signs out front – Come warm up with an Irish coffee, etc. But their version inevitably resembles the Vegas variety, poured into cheesy glass mugs with handles, and topped with whipped cream from a can. Some even go so far as to use that awful green syrup to draw an insulting four leaf clover atop the cream. It seemed the only way to get a real Irish coffee was to do it yourself. But this proved problematic as well, particularly in finding proper method to get real heavy cream (the only kind permissible in an authentic Irish coffee) to sit atop the drink. Whipping the cream in to a more solidified state worked, but was an unacceptable shortcut as it prevented sipping the drink through the cream properly. After many experiments, the solution seemed to come from a friend of a friend who brought back a gift set of four “official” Irish coffee glasses from the Buena Vista in San Francisco. The Buena Vista, for the uninitiated, is the Jerusalem of Irish coffees. You cannot understand the drink without having made at least one pilgrimage in your lifetime. Reading Hinckle’s article, however, lent fresh perspective on just how seriously they take this Holy Land designation.

I went through three of the four glasses in short order. They’re delicate by design, and this combined with their specific designation as being used only for a drink containing coffee and alcohol isn’t a recipe for longevity. I decided it was time to order up some more, but after exhaustive research concluded there were none to be found outside of the expensive gift sets sold by the Buena Vista. I finally settled on a close substitute, purchasing a set of seven John Jameson glasses from an Ohio woman on eBay. The price was right, the condition good, and they were originally procured in Dublin in 1969. They even had ornate drawings of cows and sugar cubes on the sides, designating the proper level for ingredients. But they still seemed to lack in both cream support and heat retention. Not until reading Hinckle’s article did I realize it’s the special flared mouth at the top of the traditional glass that makes all the difference.

Having more or less given up on getting it right, I took some solace in knowing that I’d soon be returning to San Francisco where I could find the real deal. And so it was I found myself in Specs tavern in North Beach a few months back, secure in the fact that it was one of my three or four go-to places for an Irish coffee. I placed my order and was shocked to see the bartender lay the drink in front of me in one of those awful Vegas style Irish coffee glass-mugs. And the drink was all off; it cooled prematurely and felt heavy to the hand. Disappointed, I put it down and shuffled dejectedly into the cool San Francisco night.

It’s a long way home indeed.