Irish Coffee Shot

Irish whiskey, coffee liqueur, and cream — the Buena Vista Café-popularized Irish Coffee (Sheridan, Foynes Airport, 1943) condensed into a party-ready shooter.

The Irish Coffee Shot is a concentrated shooter adaptation of Joe Sheridan's 1943 Foynes Airport creation — the hot coffee, Irish whiskey, brown sugar, and cream preparation that became one of the most recognized cocktails in the world after Stanton Delaplane introduced it to the Buena Vista Café in San Francisco in November 1952. The shot format condenses the Irish Coffee's essential flavor elements — the interplay of Irish whiskey's grain warmth, coffee's roasted bitterness, and cream's dairy richness — into a quick-service shooter appropriate for party and casual bar contexts where the full preparation's hot coffee requirement would be impractical. Jameson Irish Whiskey, the world's best-selling Irish whiskey produced at the Midleton Distillery in County Cork, is most commonly used, with Baileys Irish Cream or coffee liqueur providing the coffee-and-cream elements in the concentrated format. The Irish Coffee Shot became a staple of St. Patrick's Day menus and Irish-themed bar events across the United States.