Small Glass Full of Heat: Irish Coffee Day

Think it is March 17? (Hint: nope.)

Anyone who would dare stoke the cooling embers of the "What California City Reigns Supreme: Los Angeles or San Francisco?" debate has clearly not been updated.

So here's the update: Playing the Golden State behemoths against each other was fresh back when it took a week to journey between the two.

With one exception: It's never been decided who makes a better cup of Irish coffee. On the one hand you have the Buena Vista, the City by the Bay's beloved, water-close tavern.The cable cars outside, and the Buena Vista's Victorian setting, do up, up, up the overall charm.

And down south there's Tom Bergin's, a Fairfax Avenue institution that's long been Irish-coffee-ing up Angelenos (Angelenos that keep adding to the watering hole's impressive collection of wall shamrocks).

How to decide between two greats? Let's not, for the moment, and instead raise small, heated glass, complete with fluted bottom, to National Irish Coffee Day, which is actually not on March 17, though St. Patrick's revelers do often toast the holiday with a cup of the robust brew.

Jan. 25 is its day, which happens to be a Sunday in 2015, and a Sunday is a fine and proper day to sip from a dainty glass that's full of coffee and cream and that one other powerful ingredient that out-kicks the coffee for sheer kickiness: whiskey.

By the by, here's some info that may further mend any San Francisco-Los Angeles Irish coffee competition: The Tom Bergin's recipe was suggested by San Francisco columnist Stanton Delaplane, a gentleman who'd learned of the recipe in Ireland. (Tullamore DEW Irish Whiskey is key to the Tom Bergin's concoction, let it be known.)

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As for National Irish Coffee Day? Tom Bergin's starts the party at 11 a.m. (time updated) on the 25th. Making it a little more special? A gingerbread flavor will be in the mix.

Maybe one day representatives of both Los Angeles and San Francisco will meet mid-state to clink glasses and get over this tasty competition. Maybe? Say, Paso Robles: Are you game to host the Irish Coffee Summit?

Call it a coming together of two California cities and the celebration of the beverage they're both best at making.

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