Recipe for the Best Irish Coffee in the World

Venue: Cape Town’s hippest coffee bar (Truth HQ located at 36 Buitenkant Street, next to Mavericks) where Professor Jones is constructing a coffee contraption from some old bicycles gears and typewriters (below).

Ingredients: Double shot of Resurrection coffee (a spicy blend of beans from Brazil, Ethiopia, Guatemala and India) from a Slayer hand-built espresso machine. Macallan 12 YO single malt from Speyside, Scotland (sorry Seamus, we did try Jameson and even Jameson 12 YO), shaken cream. No sugar.

Method: clear the pipes by expelling any beached bloggers from the venue and send them packing for Camps Bay. Invite the editor of Whisky magazine (Fiona McDonald), SA’s leading restaurant reviewer (JP Rossouw and his brother (below) en route to critting a Spur steak house), divers whisky bloggers and identities, the manager of Bascule Bar (second only to the Orphanage as down town watering hole) and King of Coffee, David Donde whose elegant upper lip topiary fell victim to the recent strong Southeaster that sent portable toilets rolling down Rose street in the direction of Truth on Somerset Road which features an ossuary of previous unfortunates.

Everything came together last night at 6pm and the variables were impressive: coffee was prepared filtered, espresso and Americano style. Whiskies included the Jameson brothers, Ardberg 10 YO (confirmed by my misspelling of Ardbeg, the biggest disappointment of the night), Woodford Reserve from Kentucky, Three Ships 5 YO (the civilized side of peat) and Jack Daniels Honey – a real crowd pleaser, but not this crowd. Heck, it became clear we were close to the summit of Mount Anorak when a dispute broke out over the merits of brandy snifters versus standard glasses for the winning coffee, Champagne flutes and Martini glasses having been discarded in the first round. Don’t tell Georg Riedel or he’ll design a special glass.

Alas, the winning recipe is unlikely ever to enter the mainstream as it will retail just south of R100 (so around R150 at the Orphanage) calculated as R50 for the tot of Macallan (R500 a bottle) and R25 for the double espresso. If Truth’s volumes plummeted 50% when the price broke the R20 barrier (cut-price double shot Truth is still R12 at Twankeys in the Taj Hotel) what prospects are there for R100 Irish? Even if they are made with sherry cask single malt? Heck, Maverick’s car flies now patronize the dodgy superette across the road that sells coffee for R3.95. Add a tot of meths, and there’s merit, my China.