Burly but Sweet Irish Coffee

 -What you need to get through another family holiday.-

We, like any barely functioning individual, like to mix our uppers with our downers. While ice cream sprinkled with a bit of Prozac is keen, an Irish coffee is by and far much more accessible and doesn’t require a prescription.

The key to a really fantastic Irish coffee is brown sugar simple syrup - the musky flavor of the molasses in the brown sugar brings out the burly, peaty flavors of both the coffee and the whiskey. It’s blended in both the barely whipped cream and the coffee itself ensuring a properly stout coffee cocktail. It takes a few extra steps then your everyday Irish coffee, but the results speak for themselves.

A special thanks to Rachel Valley, who took this amazing photograph. If you're in the Sacramento area and need an excellent food photographer, I highly recommend her. 

For the Brown Sugar Simple Syrup Makes
3 cups of syrup 

WHAT YOU’LL NEED…
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup water

WHAT YOU’LL DO…
Place both ingredients in a saucepan and warm over medium-high heat until the sugar is dissolved. Allow to cool before using.


For the Brown Sugar Whipped Cream 
Makes plenty of whipped cream 

WHAT YOU’LL NEED… 
1 cup heavy whipping cream
¼ cup brown sugar simple syrup

WHAT YOU’LL DO… 
Place the whipping cream in a bowl and whisk the utter hell out of it. While you do so, slowly pour in the brown sugar simple syrup in a thin stream. Be careful not to overwhisk. You don’t want a super-thick cream with stiff peaks, but rather a soft cream your can easily spoon out or even pour.


For the Irish Coffee 
Makes 1 Irish Coffee 

WHAT YOU’LL NEED... 
6 ounces freshly brewed coffee
1.5 ounces Irish whiskey
.5 ounce of brown sugar simple syrup
 brown sugar whipped cream for topping

WHAT YOU’LL DO… 
Place the coffee, whiskey, and simple syrup in a glass and fill almost to the top, leaving about ½-inch of headspace. Fill the rest of the glass with way too much of the brown sugar whipped cream. Indulge immediately.


VARIATIONS 
Bailey’s Irish Coffee: Use Bailey’s Irish Cream in place of the brown sugar simple syrup for the whipped cream. A bit more liquor with your liquor is never a bad thing.