As we are on the verge of the festive season I wonder what the current state of the art is regards mixing alcohol with coffee. I've never had an Irish coffee or a coffee liqueur, so I'd be interested to find some formula with out getting off my face in the process of learning how. I had thought that a cuban turquino would go nicely with tequilla, but in what proportions? For that matter how do you make Irish Coffee?

Anyone got any recipes? Or recommended coffee/alcohol combinations like fruity coffee with cassis etc?

I made a bunch of espresso-based Irish coffees for brunch a couple of weeks ago. I think a traditional Irish coffee is brewed coffee, whiskey, and heavy cream

For mine I used my 6oz cupping cups, double shot of espresso over a pinch of sugar, added equal parts Jamesons and foamed almond milk to that. They were mighty tasty. I picked the almond milk for my vegan friends but it was so good I never made any with half-and-half.

That sounds like a good recipe. I've been doing a bit of searching a see that the following are quite common too.
VARIATIONS:
Several other after dinner coffee combinations which can be made by simply replacing the whiskey in the Irish Coffee recipe.
# Royale Coffee - with Cognac.
# Italian Coffee - with Strega.
# Calypso Coffee - with Tia Maria.
# Mexican Coffee - with Kahlua.
# Caribbean Coffee - with Rum.

I wonder if anyone has gone to the trouble of matching specific coffees to specific spirits. It seems like the flavour combinations are being led by the alcohol and not the coffee. Maybe it would be a waste of good coffee to mix it in this way. Still I can't help get the feeling that some coffees and spirits/liqueuers would marry up very well indeed.

Irish Coffee (as made at the BV and supposedly as was made at Gatwick):

Heat a glass with hot water, dump the water out.
Fill glass with strong coffee (not espresso) about 3/4 full
Add two sugar cubes, stir to dissolve
Pour a healthy shot (or so) of Irish whiskey
Float a collar of lightly whipped cream
Drink.

Ahh.

Of course you can use espresso if you like, but it pulls the balance more towards coffee than Irish.

A variation which was popular around the Bay Area back in the day was to use a splash of Curacao or Grand Marnier at the bottom of the glass to lend some complexity and a bit of extra sweetness.

There are an infinite number of alcohol/coffee variations. The bartender's rule is to pour booze into coffee and top with whipped cream. You can complicate a little by using chocolate, nut, orange and honey/cream flavored liqueurs as the only alcoholic additions or in concert with others. The only limitation is your liquor cabinet. Be creative, and for God's sake try to please your woman. Try harder.

BDL

The late Schapira brothers, who had coffee shops in NY for most of the 20th century have the following advice for coffee drinks which has always worked well for me:

Their alcoholic coffee recipes use either:

extra strength brewed coffee = 1 ACM coffee to 4 ozs water
double strength brewed coffee = 2 ACM coffee to 6 ozs water
(ACM = approved coffee measure, or 2 tbls or 1/8 cup)

Their Irish coffee is the same as BDL's recipe above, and calls for extra strength coffee, as do most such flavored coffee drinks I've seen like Cafe Dante and Cafe Brulot. Recipes that call for double strength coffee (sometimes called demitasse) seem to have originated with espresso in mind, but were written with the double strength specification because most folks couldn't make espresso at home.
Their "starting point" suggestion for espresso and liqueur combos is 1 part liqueur to 3 parts espresso.

Be creative, and for God's sake try to please your woman. Try harder.

+1

For a caffe coretto I use an ounce of Sambuca with 2 shots espresso mixed with about 8 ounces milk. I also switch it up with Creme de Minthe

The mention of Cafe Borgia sent me off into a internet search where I encountered this non-alcoholic version made for espresso machine wielders, so I'm sharing:

Courtesy of Primavera Coffee Roasters in Birmingham, AL:

"To make the drink we start by grating to order orange zest which is then placed in the organic milk that will be used for the drink. While this begins infusing, we pull our normal double ristretto shot into an old fashioned glass. Next we mix dark chocolate syrup into the espresso and garnish with sprinkles of Dagoba chocolate powder. We then steam the orange zest milk, which really brings out the aromatic orange oils into the milk, before straining out the orange zest. Finally we pour the exquisitely textured milk into the dark chocolate espresso mixture."

Have to try that...