A disappointing Irish Coffee

I was out with Layabout Lad and directed him to an Irish pub I had been in a couple of nights before.  There the food looked  reasonably priced, but what attracted me more than anything else was a bar mat with a picture of an Irish Coffee.  The coffee looked so dark and the cream on top beautiful and white.  A little like my favourite drink.  I cast my mind back to one of the first times I tasted an Irish Coffee in a pub in central London, just off Wardour Street.  That to was an Irish pub if I recall rightly.  It was warm, alcoholic, creamy and silky.  I enjoyed it because it was well made and outside cold.  I don't think I have tasted an Irish Coffee of the same calibre since, even when trying to make it myself.  Although I researched it, there was always a problem of the cream sinking in the glass and never quite hitting the spot.  The pictures had drawn me there and knowing it was an Irish Pub added a kind of authenticity to it.  If there was going to be a place which could recreate the same glass I had long ago this would be it.  My expectations were high.

The thing with having expectations is they can be quite easily dashed, which makes me careful and pessimistic at times.  A pessimist can only be surprised and happy with a pleasant surprise, whilst an optimist will have their hopes depressed when expectations are not met.  I ordered the Irish Coffees and went to my table where Layabout sat.  About five minutes later the coffees arrived.  Unfortunately I could immediately tell they were not up to scratch.  The coffee was not black and the cream was clearly mixing into the coffee and not making it the classic black and white image of what it should be.  I drank a couple of sips.  Cream, yes, whisky, yes, but when it came to the coffee it tasted of watered down pishhh.  I took it back and said I just couldn't taste the coffee.  At which the bar tender offered to make a second one and would make the coffee stronger with two shots of espresso.  Hmmmm, when he said espresso it was another factor which alarmed me.  The espresso shots had been diluted with hot water, what a idiot.  I also thought this kid either doesn't drink or hasn't had an Irish Coffee made for him because what he served was not an Irish Coffee.  The whole meal had been quite nice only to be spoiled by the last item which should of been accepted as good being it was an Irish pub. 

The moral of the story.  Pictures might paint a thousand words, but they don't live up to the reality, only first hand experience can.  Next time I'll go for a cup of tea in an English tea shop and see if they know what they are doing.