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Last year, Paddy’s Bar & Grill took a big step toward pre-pandemic normalcy by hosting its St. Patrick’s Day street party in downtown Portland, complete with tents, bands, pipers and beer.
This time around, the celebration should transport you all the way back to the freewheeling days of the 2010s since the bar is trying to reclaim its Guinness World Record for making the largest Irish coffee—a title it last held more than a decade ago.
Portland’s oldest Irish bar snagged its first Guinness record on March 17, 2011, after assembling a supersized version of the classic cocktail. Paddy’s ended up serving a mixture of coffee and whiskey topped with heavy whipping cream that was 159 gallons.
The bar will need to go even bigger to snag the title again. Last year, a restaurant in northern Michigan named Hofbrau teamed up with Tullamore Dew and Higher Grounds Trading Co. and made a 550-gallon Irish coffee on St. Patrick’s Day, beating the previous record of 350 gallons.
Paddy’s will partner with Kilbeggan Whiskey, Caffe Umbria and Alpenrose Dairy to craft the massive beverage at the 14th annual St. Patrick’s Day Festival. Organizers are quite confident they’ll reclaim the record, because they’ve also secured the services of NessCampbell Crane + Rigging, presumably to help secure the Irish coffee’s container. Once complete, attendees can purchase smaller glasses of the drink.
In addition to attempting to set a world record, Paddy’s will host its traditional festival, which includes a raffle with a trip to Ireland and tour of the Guinness brewery as the grand prize. The sweepstakes will benefit the event’s official charity partner, the Children’s Cancer Association.
“The whole purpose of Paddy’s is to connect people,” bar co-owner Josh Johnston stated in a press release. “St. Patrick’s Day is one way we celebrate this commitment. We get to thank our community, raise money for a worthy cause, and have way too much fun in the process.”