What drink was invented in the terminal restaurant of a flying boat port on the Shannon River? It’s the Irish Coffee!
Accordingly, Irish coffee was invented in the 1940s – at Foynes Airport, a forerunner of today’s Shannon International Airport. Some American airline passengers who were stranded here in the middle of winter enjoyed the drink.
The then boss of the airport restaurant, Joe Sheridan, served them the coffee together with Irish whiskey and whipped cream – a combination that not only warmed up the guests quickly, but was also so well received that the restaurant continued to serve “Irish coffee” from then on could.
However, “Irish Coffee” only became internationally known a few years later, when the Café Buena Vista in San Francisco copied it in 1952 and thus reached a much larger audience.