Punch:
A white-jacketed bartender steps up to the long wooden bar at the Buena Vista Café and lines up a dozen tulip-shaped glasses. Into each go two white sugar cubes pulled from a bulk box. Then comes hot black coffee in a continuous steaming stream from a diner-style pot. Next: Irish whiskey, delivered in a dramatic long pour all along the line of waiting glassware. Last comes the cream—aged for half a week and then lightly whipped in a milkshake blender—ladled gently from a metal pint glass like a fluffy floe.
The pattern will continue all day long—filling anywhere from 2,000 to 3,500 glasses—until the bartender’s white jacket sleeves are spattered with coffee and the century-old tavern shutters at 2 a.m.
Whenever I go to San Francisco, I always stop in at the Buena Vista Café for four to seven Irish Coffees.
The best Irish Coffee I ever had was at a tiny, long-gone Irish bar in a less-than-glamorous part of Queens near the Long Island Expressway.
A great nightcap after an evening of theater, but not exactly the best sleep inducement.
My wife, a Berkeley grad, vomited in their bathroom many times. For me, always a great Saturday morning “Hair of the dog” after a Friday deal closing.
With the water shortage in California how do they wash the dishes now?
And if you’re in the East Bay, go to Berkeley and hit Brennan’s for another world-class Irish Coffee.
We leave them out in the rain.