Irish Car Bombed

This past weekend, the Tiki Gal and I joined Dale and Carol at a great Irish pub in Tulsa called Kilkenny's. Dale and Carol had been there once before but had been quickly chased out by a vicious fog of cigarette smoke. Since that visit, however, Kilkenney's went smoke free so we decided to go there for dinner.

I have absolutely no experience with anything Irish but that won't stop me from saying that I though Kilkenny's was an extremely authentic looking Irish pub. It was filled with dark woods and dark colors. There were a few people just having drinks at the bar but most of the customers were having dinner. We were led to a table and given menus and left to ponder the many, many choices.

Dale and I quickly found the beer section of the menu. There were around fifteen beers listed and, unfortunately, we had already tried them all. We did notice, however, that there was a "Specials" section. The Specials seemed to be beers mixed with other stuff. After looking this list over, we decided to try an Irish Car Bomb that was listed as a mixture of Guinness, Irish whiskey, and Bailey's Irish Cream. When our waitress came back for our order, the conversation went like this:

Me: I'll have an Irish Car Bomb.

Waitress: Would you like something else as well. Because the Irish Car Bomb is like a shot.

Me: Oh, well... okay... (flipping back through menu frantically)... I guess I'll have a Newcastle.

Dale ordered the same and the girls both ordered wine (someday, somewhere one of them will order a beer and a heavenly glow will surround us as trumpets sound and Republicans and Democrats embrace... Or pigs will fly.) Anyway, we got some advice on the dinner menu from the waitress before she went on her way to get our drinks. Kilkenny's has many, many choices of entrees. There were Irish favorites, something called a boxty, traditional pub fare, and traditional American food. There were so many choices, it was a little overwhelming. As we studied the menus, our waitress came back with our drinks. The first thing we noticed is that she had two half-full pint glasses on her tray. Hey, we thought, she's only giving us half of a beer. Unfortunately for us, that wasn't the case.

It turns out that an Irish Car Bomb is only like a shot in that you drink it down all at once. It is not at all like a shot in the size department. As you can see from the picture below, the Irish Car Bomb consists of a half full pint glass of Guinness and a two ounce shot glass that has a mixture of half Irish whiskey and half Bailey's. The waitress told us that the trick was to drop the shot glass into the pint of Guinness and then drink it as fast as possible. She also said it would taste like chocolate milk. Since she said the drink was "like a shot" I wasn't inclined to believe that it would taste anything like chocolate milk. "Like a shot." I'd love to see her idea of a pint glass. I bet you measure it in gallons.

With fear in our eyes, Dale and I put the shot glasses into position and on the girls' count, dropped them in. I hadn't chugged anything stronger than water since college so I was a bit worried as I raised the pint glass to my mouth. I was happily surprised that the waitress was right. The Irish Car Bomb does taste a little like chocolate milk. The Bailey's gives it a nice creaminess to combine with the malty taste of the Guinness and Irish whiskey. Dale and I both drained our glasses in no time at all and, most importantly, no one lost a tooth due to an out of control shot glass. We decided the Irish Car Bomb was really good and considered having another later on. I did wonder why it had its particular name because it didn't seem all that dangerous at first glance. About ten minutes later, however, I knew exactly why it was called the Irish Car Bomb and had decided against having another.

We ordered our dinner choices and sat chatting while sipping our beer and wine. Dale and I have had Newcastle many times but we have not rated it yet so we planned to rate it before we finished. The Irish Car Bomb had other ideas for us. By the time our dinner arrived, that little buzzing you get behind your eyes after a few drinks had settled in. I even mentioned to Dale that I was feeling the effects of our "shot." My food was great, however, so I dug in. I had ordered a breakfast boxty which is an omelet wrapped in a potato pancake and covered in Hollendaise sauce. Wow - it was really good. The Tiki Gal and Carol had also ordered boxtys and Dale ordered Cottage Pie. As we continued to eat and I continued to sip at my beer, the buzzing behind my eyes began to spread out to various parts of my body. It was a little weird, actually. I usually don't feel quite like that when I've had one drink too many but it was sort of interesting. However, when I tried to order dessert, I couldn't remember the words for "creme brulee." I guess Irish Car Bomb's blast away all the French phrases from your memory. I can think of worse side effects.

Another effect of an Irish Car Bomb is that you lose the ability to rate beers. For that reason, there will be no rating of Newcastle Brown Ale in this entry. I think it was good but it is hard to say. All of those buzzing body parts made it hard to concentrate.

On the way back to the car, I handed the keys over to the Tiki Gal. I'm proud to say that's only the second time I've had to do that in our time together. Now that the Irish Car Bomb has entered my life, though, she may be doing much more driving.