I wuz but a boy, returning from one of them furrin wars, when I had my first Irish Coffee, one of a row made atop the bar at the Buena Vista in San Francisco.

Imagine my surprise many years later to find that there were publicans in Ireland who (even with the flow of tourists) who weren't very accomplished at mixing "Irish Coffee", which seems to have been an American invention.

Things to remember....

Why would anyone mix Bailey's (Irish whiskey, lots of sugar, and some sort of "stabilized" cream - lasts longer than the food left for the departed in Egyptian tombs and tastes like it!) with "corn spirits"?

I see nothing wrong with decent Bourbon or Sour Mash and a bit of raw sugar mixed into a mug of dark roast coffee, topped with a dollop of "real" cream.

I'll cross busy streets against traffic for a classic "Cafe Corretto", redolent of grappa, served up in Italian style.

A double espresso, dosed with a shot of almost any of the world's grape brandies (and there are a million from Palinks to Pisco and all the aguardientes in between), sugar and a twist of lemon peel lights my fire.

As for Delta's offering, it reminds me of what Delta has become, a culturally and corporately corrupt illegitimate offspring of what was once a real airline (as long as all routes included a stop in Atlanta).