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Drink in Focus: Irish coffee at The Diplomat

This winter warmer, reportedly born at an airport in Ireland in the 1940s, gets a sumptuous upgrade at SoHo hotspot, The Diplomat

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Irish Coffee at The Diplomat bar in Central, Hong Kong. Photo: The Diplomat

No cocktail is as proficient at providing cover for a daytime swig of whisky while scratching your caffeine itch as the humble Irish coffee.

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On paper, it’s a simple concoction. All it requires is for you to spike your afternoon coffee with a shot of Irish whisky – a recipe so simple that your cool aunt or uncle has probably made a few while visiting you and yours for Christmas.

Award them bonus points if they added Baileys or Kahlua to intensify the sweet cream or coffee notes in what is traditionally seen as an at-home winter warmer; casually mixed, no fuss or frills.

For those wandering the streets of SoHo this holiday season, however, few places do winter warmers like the Irish coffee quite as excellently and to spec as The Diplomat.

“[The cocktail] has such as great history,” founder John Nugent explains, “with first rumours of it being served during a long winter layover at an airport in Ireland.”

Founder John Nugent behind the bar at The Diplomat. Photo: Handout
Founder John Nugent behind the bar at The Diplomat. Photo: Handout

Nugent may well be referring to Foynes, a crucial mid-century stop for transatlantic flights near Limerick, Ireland, and where in 1943, head chef Joe Sheridan added Irish whiskey to coffee he brewed for passengers on a flight that had to turn back due to a severe winter storm.

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