Take a quart of very thick cream half a pint of white wine the juice of three lemons, the peel of one of them grated and thrown in sweeten it with loaf sugar to your taste mix all together in an earthen pan then beat it all one way with a whisk till it is so thick that a rod may stand on it, then take it off by spoonfulls and fill your glasses it may stand a night in the pan before you glass them up it will then keep a week.
—from an 18th century Irish cookbook manuscript
We do drink a lot of tea, I suppose. I never really thought about it until I went back to live in Ireland for a while after having been in America for years. Though in the States my wife drank coffee, when we moved to Ireland, we switched to tea. We had the kettle constantly on the boil because we had a lot of visitors calling in, either old friends or family, or new friends and acquaintances in our new village, wanting to get a look at “the Yanks up at the cottage.” (The fact that I am Irish was all but negated by the fact that my wife was not.) She loved it, and kept a tin of biscuits and a flowery teapot ready for all and sundry, and hardly anyone said no, including deliverymen who were merely bringing a load of turf to keep us warm in that cottage without a furnace.
We drank so much tea during the day that first autumn, and pints of Guinness at the various local pubs at night, that it was quite a while before I remembered the pleasures of other Irish drinks: like elderflower lemonade in the summer, a hot port in the pub on a raw wintry night, and a milk punch for the mornings after.
And lemon barley water, which you can buy in the grocery store and dilute at home, or make yourself by soaking barley in water with lemon zest. “Why do you drink barley water?” my wife wanted to know, dubiously eyeing the cloudy liquid. It has all sorts of health claims: tonic, refresher, reliever of “weak kidneys.” But the truth is, I think, we just like it.
If you love it, you don’t have to ask why. But if you’re unaccustomed to it, the cloudy look may surprise you. It’s kind of like very mild lemonade; the barley imparts body. Barley water tastes rich, somehow, and it’s restorative. Many decades ago, it was a sort of early sports drinks, given to athletes or brought to farmers working in the fields. Give it a try. This recipe makes a small amount, and if you like it, you can double it easily. You can also sweeten it with honey instead of sugar.
For 2 servings
2 lemons
¼ cup pearl barley
3 cups water
cup sugar (or to taste)
1 Trim the zest off the lemons in long strips, avoiding the bitter white pith. Put the strips of zest in a medium saucepan with the barley and the water. Squeeze the lemon juice into a cup and reserve.
2 Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer gently for half an hour, until the barley is soft. Strain out and discard the barley and zest.
3 Stir in the reserved lemon juice and sugar to taste. Chill before drinking. Store in a glass bottle or jar in the refrigerator for up to three days.
Elder bushes grow abundantly in Ireland, and each summer, their branches are heavy with big clusters of tiny, creamy flowers. Their distinctive perfume is heady and vaguely citrus-like without being overpowering, and it’s frequently used as a flavoring in desserts and beverages (it pairs deliciously with apple juice) and to make homemade wine. In the United States, elderflowers are more commonly seen in northern climates such as Vermont and New Hampshire. If you’re fortunate enough to have elderflowers, try this lemonade, a drink that shows up in Irish restaurants and cafes each summer. If not, follow the directions below using 8 elderflower herbal tea bags.
Makes about 2 quarts
2 quarts water
3-4 elderflower clusters, picked over and washed
2 cups sugar (or to taste)
Juice of 6 lemons
1 Place the water and elderflowers in a saucepan and bring to a boil, pushing the flowers down into the water with a wooden spoon. Turn off the heat and leave the flowers soaking for 20 minutes. Remove the flowers with a slotted spoon and discard them.
2 Put the sugar into the hot water and stir until dissolved. Refrigerate until very cold.
3 To serve, stir in the fresh lemon juice and taste to adjust for sugar. Serve over ice, perhaps with a sprig of fresh elderflower tucked into each glass for decoration. Store covered in the refrigerator for up to a week.
When my wife was expecting our first child, we went back to visit friends in Graiguenamanagh, the village in County Kilkenny where we lived for a time. She caught a bad cold but was 6 months pregnant and didn’t want to take any medications. I took her to the kindly village doctor whom we used to see occasionally when we lived there. He listened to her concerns and snorted, “You Americans! You’re so uptight! Go down to the pub now and have a hot whiskey, and you’ll feel better straightaway.” On doctor’s advice, off we went to our favorite local, as your preferred pub is known, and, as my wife tells it, “I did, and I did!”
For one serving
8 whole cloves
1 slice lemon, ¼-inch thick
1 jigger Irish whiskey (1½ ounces or 3 tablespoons)
¾ cup boiling water
1 teaspoon white sugar (or to taste)
1 Press cloves into the triangles of the lemon flesh and put the piece in the bottom of a heavy tumbler or wine glass. Pour the whiskey on top of it.
2 Put a metal spoon in the glass and pour the boiling water in so the stream hits the bowl of the spoon. Add sugar to taste and drink hot. Bartenders sometimes serve the sugar and a spoon on the side, and nearly always twist a paper napkin around the glass so you can pick it up while it’s still very hot.
Fragrant and soothing on a cold, raw day, hot port is prepared like hot whiskey but with a double shot of a good quality port instead and usually no sugar. When you order a hot port in a pub in Ireland, the bartender nearly always says, “With or without sugar?” because generally port is sweet enough without it.
Maybe it was invented for tourists by a chef at a restaurant at Shannon Airport, as the story goes, but nobody cares; we all drink it, you can get it anywhere, and it’s the one surefire food of Ireland that practically anyone in the world can name. I’ve been at many an Irish dinner party where Irish Coffee was served after dinner, and I think it’s because hosts love the tableside drama of floating the cream.
This is important: Irish Coffee is made with only very lightly whipped cream, but American cream has a lower butterfat content so it helps to whip it till it’s nearly making soft peaks. Real pros in Ireland (read: bartenders) don’t whip it at all, but anything you can do to make it work helps. The goal is to make the cream float so it looks like the foam on a pint of Guinness. You hold a spoon upside down over sweetened coffee and slowly pour cream over it so it floats on the surface. The amount of cream partly depends on the shape of the glass: you want a visible white line, so a wide glass requires more cream. The coffee can’t be too hot or the cream will just melt into it (hot, yes, but not piping hot; let it cool a few minutes), and it must be sweetened. That tablespoon of sugar—you can use more, but not less—keeps the cream afloat.
For one serving
2 to 4 tablespoons whipping cream
1 cup strong, freshly brewed coffee
1 tablespoon sugar (or more to taste, but not less)
1 jigger Irish whiskey (1½ ounces or 3 tablespoons)
1 Whisk the cream until it starts to thicken. If you actually whip it stiff, it won’t flow over the spoon and spread over the surface, so just beat until soft peaks begin to form.
2 Ideally, use a footed Irish coffee glass, or a thick wineglass or glass mug. Fill about 3/4 full with coffee that’s not super hot. Stir in the whiskey and sugar. (The whiskey cools the coffee a bit if you’re in doubt.)
3 Hold a teaspoon upside down and horizontally over the glass with the tip of it not quite touching the coffee. Slowly drizzle the cream over the spoon. It should flow off the tip and slowly spread across the surface of the coffee rather than plunging to the bottom.
Guinness is considered by its many aficionados to be extremely creamy, but when you add it to champagne or prosecco, its fruitiness emerges as well. The proportions are roughly two parts bubbly to one part Guinness, but you can mix it to taste. It’s a bit of a novelty drink, but, like Irish Coffee, it’s found all over Ireland. Black Velvet is a terrific party drink. It’s Irish, you can mix it to order as guests arrive, it’s delicious—and it stretches your Champagne farther!
For one serving
4 ounces (½ cup) chilled
Champagne or prosecco
2 ounces (¼ cup) chilled Guinness Extra Stout
1 Pour the champagne into a flute or other tall glass.
2 Pour the Guinness on top. (Guinness is heavier. If you mix it the other way around, it won’t combine evenly and will need to be stirred.)
Some pubs still have snugs, but you might never know it unless you’re a local. That’s because they’re so well hidden from the main part of the pub. They were originally for private meetings, or the clergy or local gentry, but they were also for women to have a drink in privacy. Say the local chatelaine fancied a whiskey or a pint after the hunt, she could drink it either in the privacy of her carriage, or car, or, more comfortably, in the snug. The days are long gone when ladies were not welcome in the bar (they weren’t banned so much as frowned upon and invited to move to the lounge), but even so, Guinness and Blackcurrant is mainly considered a ladies’ drink that men would rarely order. That said, we do drink it! For those who don’t like the dryness or bitterness of Guinness, you can take the edge off with a shot of blackcurrant cordial. You just have to ask.
For one serving
1 to 2 tablespoons blackcurrant cordial or liqueur (or to taste)
1 pint Guinness
1 Pour the blackcurrant into the center of the pint and swirl it (don’t stir!) to combine.
Cold milk punch, as with any milk punch (see Eggnog below), is meant to be restorative. The cold version is more for someone “with a head on him,” as we might say of someone who’d indulged a bit much at the pub the night before. The sufferer might say, “Give us a milk punch there. I’ve quite the head on me.” And here’s what the bartender would mix, with a tiny shot of dark rum, or “black rum,” as we call it in Ireland. From experience, we’re big believers in the efficacy of the hair of the dog. You’ll hear there’s no ice in Irish bars. There is. You just have to ask for it.
For one serving
½ cup whole milk
1 jigger Irish whiskey or brandy (1½ ounces or 3 tablespoons)
½ jigger dark rum (¾ ounce or 1½ tablespoons)
1 teaspoon sugar (or to taste)
Freshly grated nutmeg
1 Mix all the ingredients in a tumbler. Add a couple ice cubes and stir vigorously to chill. Top with a grating of nutmeg.
Eggnog for Ireland is not so much a festive holiday tipple as a warm and comforting restorative for invalids or those under the weather. You might whip up an eggnog to sooth the nerves of someone who’s had a shock. Here’s how.
For one serving
1 cup whole milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon sugar (or to taste)
1 jigger brandy or Irish whiskey (1½ ounces or 3 tablespoons)
Freshly grated nutmeg
1 Heat the milk in a small saucepan to just short of boiling. While the milk heats, whisk the egg briskly with the sugar in a large mug.
2 Pour the milk slowly over the egg and sugar mixture, whisking constantly. Stir in the brandy or whisky, and top with nutmeg.
In the autumn, sloes ripen all over the Irish countryside. They’re actually a type of tiny dark blue and hard wild plum, but if you try to eat one off the bush, they’re tart and mouth-puckering. Poked all over with a needle, gathered in the bottom of a bottle, and topped with gin, however, they slowly release their flavor, imparting a subtle fruitiness and, beautifully, a glowing crimson to the gin. Sloes may be near impossible to find in America. (If you’re lucky enough to live near a dune and you can gather beach plums, try them instead.) Make more than one bottle in the autumn when the sloes are ripe. Otherwise you’ll be very sorry later. You can sip it on the rocks as an aperitif. Make a Sloe Gin and Tonic, or try a Sloe Gin Fizz: 2 jiggers sloe gin, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and 1/2 cup soda water.
To make 1 quart
4 cups gin
4 cups sloes
1 cup sugar
1 Use a large sewing needle to prick the sloes. (You can do this in a slapdash manner, poking at the mass of sloes, rather than trying to prick each one.)
2 Divide the sloes between two quart-size glass jars, and pour half the gin into each. Divide the sugar among the two jars, seal the jar, and shake well.
3 Let the sloe gin rest for 3 to 4 months, shaking the bottles occasionally. I’ve never had it last long enough to bother straining out the sloes and bottling the gin separately, but perhaps you’ll do better.
I can’t claim this is a drink that’s known all over Ireland, but it’s a quirky and interesting one that pays homage to a lot of Irish beverages, including mead, the fermented honey drink the Irish monks made. Despite its sweet and innocuous name, this drink kicks like a mule. With champagne (or prosecco), a little apple cider (you can use hard cider or regular cider, as you prefer), a taste of honey, and a dash of Irish whiskey, it’s delicious and goes down easy. But in potency, it reminds me of a French 75, the cocktail of champagne, lemon juice, simple syrup, and brandy. It, too, slips down with ease, but a short time later you realize why it was named after French guns in World War I.
For 1 serving
1½ ounces (3 tablespoons) apple cider (soft or hard, as you prefer)
1 jigger Irish whiskey (1½ ounces or 3 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon honey
4 ounces (½ cup) Champagne or prosecco
1 Put the cider, whiskey, and honey in a cocktail shaker with crushed ice and shake.
2 Strain into a large martini glass and top with the Champagne.
