Irish Coffee

The story is that Irish coffee was invented in the early 1940s in County Limerick, Ireland.

 

Use a tall type glass (capable of holding hot beverages), you can adjust the amount of the ingredients according to the size glass you use. Ideally you would make a pot of coffee of some 32 ounces, and whip 8 ounces of cream,* then dispense the coffee according to the glasses, cups or mugs you use. Add the brown sugar to taste; likewise, with the Irish whiskey, and top off with whipped cream.

 

Ingredients (per serving):

 

6 to 8 ounces strong, hot black coffee

1 or 2 teaspoons brown sugar (your preference for sweetness)

2 ounces Irish whiskey (Jameson and Bushmills are best known, but there are others)

2 ounces whipped cream (preferably freshly whipped)

Brew the coffee in your preferred way (boiled, automatic drip, French press, etc). Add the brown sugar and the Irish whiskey to the glass and then pour in the hot coffee. Stir to dissolve the sugar and to mix. Top the coffee with whipped cream.

* You can whip the cream with an ounce of Irish cream (Bailey's is the best known). Irish cream is a mixture of sweetened cream, whiskey, chocolate and sometimes vanilla. The alcohol content is typically below 20%. 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Clock-This word is closely related to "cloak," a Latin-derived word (the basis of which came from Celtic) borrowed by English via Latin-based Old Northern French. The ultimate origin of "clock" is unknown, and even its later history is uncertain as to specifics. The idea has been that Irish monks ministering to the various Germanic tribes introduced the word into Germanic from Old Irish "cloc(c)," which meant "bell," and by extension, "a bell used to signal measurements of time." Old Irish was a Celtic language, and Welsh and Manx (from the Isle of Man), both also Celtic, had similar words, but whether this points to a Celtic derivation is uncertain. I've seen speculation that the word might have been borrowed by these Celtic languages from Latin; after all, it was monks who introduced the word to Germanic (it's certainly also possible that Latin got the term from Celtic). Anyway, Latin had the word "clocca," meaning "bell." Old English had "clucge," also meaning "bell," presumably from Latin, but why not from one of the Celtic languages like Welsh? "Clucge" died out by the second half of the 1300s and was replaced by, or at least altered to "clokke" by influence of Dutch "clocke," which meant a "time piece, a device used to measure time." Dutch had gotten this from Old Northern French "cloque," which had it from Latin "clocca." German also borrowed the word, but in German it is spelled "Glocke," and it still means "bell;" thus also, "Glockenspiel."^ The German borrowing seems to have come from the Irish monks (missionaries), but then later reinforced by Latin. The modern Dutch form is "klok," Low German has "klock," West Frisian has "klok." Old Norse got the term from Low German and today Icelandic has "klukka," Norwegian has "klokke," Danish has "klokke" and Swedish has "klocka." 

^ Generally, "Glockenspiel" is translated into English as "chime(s)," but it also means the instrument used to produce these ringing sounds, termed a xylophone in English, but the German Glockenspiel has a higher range of sounds, as they are made out of metal only, while xylophones are made of wood.

Mudslide Cocktail

No question about it, this drink has a good many calories, but you can save some calories by cutting down on the ice cream and replacing it with crushed ice, but it naturally won't be as creamy. This cocktail was supposedly invented in the Cayman Islands in the 1950s.

Ingredients (about 6 servings):

3 ounces vodka
3 ounces coffee flavored liqueur
3 ounces Irish cream liqueur
48 ounce carton of vanilla ice cream (or 14 to 16 ounce carton and 4 large scoops crushed ice)
4 tablespoons chocolate syrup (+ more for serving)
grated or shaved chocolate for serving
whipped cream for serving

Add everything except the grated/shaved chocolate and whipped cream to a blender. Blend until the ice cream is well mixed with the other ingredients. Pour into glasses, top each with whipped cream, drizzle some chocolate syrup over the whipped cream and then sprinkle on some grated or shaved chocolate. Another way to make this, is to use chocolate ice cream, and then skip adding the chocolate syrup to the blender, but you will still need some chocolate syrup for each serving, used as above.   

WORD HISTORY: 
Mud-This word is distantly related to "moss," a word from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "meu," which had the notion, "moist, damp, musty," and its extended form "meut," which added the meaning, "dirty, impure;" thus also, "decaying." This gave Old Germanic "mud(d)," meaning, "soft, moist earth," which then gave Low German "modder," meaning, "mud," which then became "mudde." This was borrowed by English circa 1400. It seems odd that no form of the word "mud" has been identified in Old English, although Old English "fenn," which became modern "fen," meant "mud," besides "wet land, marshy land," the meaning that has continued into modern times. Perhaps "fenn" overtook an unrecorded form of the word "mud," only later to have English borrow a form from its close cousin Low German? Anyway, relatives of "mud" in the other Germanic languages: German has "Moder," meaning, "wet and muddy land, moldiness," but this was taken from Low German (in about 1400?), but German also has "Modder," which means "mud," but it too was taken from the Low German form (apparently in the 1800s), as well as the adjective  "modderig," which means "muddy," and another adjective, "modrig" (long "o"), which means, "moist," but also, "to smell spoiled or decayed." Low German has "Mudd," meaning "mud." Low German does not have a standard form, as it is a collection of dialects, and thus it also has "Modder," also meaning, "mud," Dutch has "modder," meaning, "mud, sludge," Swedish has "modd," meaning, "slushy snow," West Frisian has "modder," meaning "mud," Danish "mudder," meaning, "mud."