San Francisco is one of those cities that has somehow become synonymous with Irish Coffee thanks to the Buena Vista and its place in the drink’s origin stories. The real, lesser known tale, tells the story of Joe Sheridan–the bartender who brought Irish Coffee to the Buena Vista–and the passengers of a Pan Am flight that was forced to turn around and land due to bad weather. Cold and tired in Foynes, Ireland, Sheridan was called in to warm the passengers up; he slipped some Irish whiskey into their coffee, topped it off with a pouring cream. When someone asked him if the coffee was Brazilian, Sheridan said, “No, it was Irish coffee!”
