It is a time to celebrate and relish in your heritage…wear green, tip a glass and enjoy some of these St. Patrick’s Day cocktail.

St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday where people wear green, make merry and imbibe…often heavily. In Ireland, up until the mid-twentieth century, the holiday remained modest and grounded in religion. It was not until the swinging 1960s when in Ireland it became the raucous celebration it is today.  To help carry on the tradition, here are the best St. Patrick’s Day cocktail recipes.

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Boilermaker

You can’t get more of a St. Patrick’s Day drink than a boilermaker.  Originally call the Sean O’Farrell, it was created in the 1890s in Montana. When the beer is served as a chaser, the drink is often called simply a shot and a beer.

Ingredients

• 1 ounce whiskey (usually bourbon or rye)
• 8 ounces beer

Create

• Pour the whiskey into a shot glass

• Fill a pint glass halfway with beer.

• Drop the shot glass into the beer.

• Drink

Irish Car Bomb

A variation of the Boilermaker with a little dark history. It hit the scene in 1979 in Wilson’s Saloon in Connecticut by Charles Burke Cronin Oat. ^{Originally created as a mixed shot drink called a Grandfather combining Baileys Irish Cream and Kahlúa. On St. Patrick’s Day March 1977 he added Jameson Irish Whiskey to the drink, calling this drink “the IRA.” In 1979, Oat spontaneously dropped this shot into a partially-drunk Guinness, calling the result a Belfast Carbomb or Irish Carbomb. And history was made.}

It’s rarely a good idea to chug anything, but the Irish Shot is an exception, as it benefits from quick consumption. That’s because the Irish cream will react with the acidic beer and begin to curdle if allowed to sit for more than a few seconds. And nobody wants curdled cream in their drink.

Ingredients

• 1/2 ounce Irish whiskey
• 1/2 ounce Baileys Irish cream
• Guinness beer

Create

• Add the Baileys and whiskey into a shot glass, pouring slowly to create a layered effect.

• Drop the shot into a pint glass filled half to three-quarters with the Guinness. Drink immediately.

Vodka Stinger

While not a traditional St. Patrick’s Day cocktail, it does have a new green coloring and has the popular vodka as a base. Created ink 1890, a stinger is made with brandy, crème de menthe, and simple syrup.  It is first noted in William Schmidt’s 1892 cocktail book The Flowing Bowl. Immediately popular with New York social set, it spread across the country. A “vodka stinger”, also known as a white spider, uses vodka instead of brandy.

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Green Beer

The Chicago River is green today and green is the color of celebrations today!  So how to make green beer – well, it isn’t hard. Legend has it, Dr. Thomas Curtincreated green beer we drink today. Dr. Thomas Curtin, a coroner’s physician and eye surgeon, first colored beer for a St. Patrick’s Day party at the Schnerer Club of Morrisania in the Bronx in 1914.  It has been popular every since and the green does not change the flavor.

Ingredients

• 12 ounces light color beer like a pilsner and witbier
• 1 drop green food coloring

Create

• Find a clear beer class
• Add the food coloring to the bottom of the glass
• Pour in the beer
• Toast to your friends

May you have all the happiness 
and luck that life can hold

And at the end of all your rainbows

May you find a pot of gold.

May the roof over your head 
always be strong

May you be in Heaven a half hour 
before the Devil knows you’re dead!