I think I was 22 when I drank my first, and the site may have been the place that claims to have invented the recipe: the Buena Vista near the Hyde Street cable car turntable in San Francisco.

Not that there’s much to the recipe. It’s nice to start with the tall glass coffee mug. After dropping two sugar cubes into it, you pour the coffee till the glass is two-thirds full, add an inch of Bushmill’s, and spoon on thick but not stiff whipped cream. You can use regular sugar instead of cubes, but you must be careful not to oversweeten the cream.

The summer of 1972 I worked at La Paz Imports in Ghirardelli Square and waited for my September wedding. Nick had a night job involving computers at B of A. His best friend Dick used to drive his funky little orange BMW from Marin to San Francisco most nights, pick me up at the store, and then whisk us down the short hill to the BV. We’d enter the packed bar and enjoy one while watching the bartender line up a dozen glasses rim-to-rim and toss sugar cubes. We eavesdropped on the neighboring drinkers and listened to them lie and sometimes we told a few stories ourselves.

After we married, Nick and I acquired a set of Irish coffee glasses and experimented till we knew what proportions we preferred. And we continued to enjoy the cocktail when we weren’t home too; we spent time in Mendocino then, and I can still recall Nick teaching them how to make the drink at the Sea Gull Inn.

The last time I remember indulging in Irish coffee was the weekend after New Year’s Eve 1975-6. Steve and Becky came by that Saturday night and we made an occasion of it. I know we had some good talk and lots of laughs. That mid-winter event, filled with love and warmth and whiskey and caffeine and cream, was the occasion that, well, it inspired us. And three seasons later, made us parents.