Irish Mist Coffee

Hot coffee, Irish Mist, and cream — Irish Mist (Williams, Tullamore, 1947) pre-combining whiskey and heather honey, simplifying the 1943 Foynes Irish Coffee.

Irish Mist Coffee draws on one of Ireland's most distinctly formulated whiskey liqueurs — Irish Mist, first produced in 1947 in Tullamore, County Offaly — in the hot coffee cocktail tradition established by Irish Coffee. Irish Mist is a honey-and-herb-flavored whiskey liqueur whose brand story claims descent from an ancient Irish drink called heather wine — a honey-and-herb spirit described in Gaelic sources as uisce meala (honey water) — though the direct historical connection to a specific ancient formula is a marketing narrative rather than a documented lineage. The modern product was created in 1947 by Daniel E. Williams of the Daly Distillery in Tullamore, combining Irish whiskey with heather honey and aromatic herbs. The liqueur is currently produced by William Grant & Sons, who acquired the brand in 2011, at the Tullamore D.E.W. Distillery. Its combination with hot coffee mirrors the Irish Coffee tradition that chef Joe Sheridan established at Foynes Airport in 1943, but the liqueur's pre-combined whiskey-and-honey character allows a simplified preparation: Irish Mist poured into hot coffee with a cream float produces a drink that captures Irish Coffee's essential whiskey-honey-coffee-cream relationship without requiring the separate measurements of the original.