In May 1973, two advertising men in a Soho office in London were handed a vague brief for a new Irish drink. They walked to the nearest supermarket, bought Jameson and a tub of single cream, and had the idea for Baileys Irish Cream inside about 45 minutes. Here is the story as one of them told it, and a Baileys hot chocolate for a cold November evening.
A vague brief called the “Wexford Whisper”
The story comes from David Gluckman, who wrote it for The Irish Times in 2017 under the headline “In 1973, I invented a ‘girly drink’ called Baileys”. Gluckman, a South African-born adman, had just started a small agency in Soho with his partner Hugh Seymour-Davies. A drinks company, International Distillers & Vintners (IDV), wanted a new drink brand for export from its Irish business. It did not say what kind of drink, only that it should be alcoholic and should not use too much Irish whiskey. Gluckman says the pair called the vague instructions the “Wexford Whisper”.
Gluckman had helped create the Kerrygold butter brand in the early 1960s, so he asked whether Ireland’s reputation for dairy could work in a bottle. If you want the Kerrygold side of the story, we told it in the butter that nearly had a very different name. Seymour-Davies asked what would happen if you mixed Irish whiskey and cream.
Forty-five minutes and a tonic bottle
They tried it that same May morning. They bought a small bottle of Jameson and a tub of single cream from the International Stores at the end of Berwick Street market, and mixed them in the office kitchen. Gluckman calls the first result “intriguing, but in reality bloody awful”. Sugar made it better. Cadbury’s Powdered Drinking Chocolate, found on the same shop shelves, made it taste really good, and the cream made the drink taste stronger than it was.
By Gluckman’s account the whole process took about 45 minutes. They poured the mixture into a cleaned-out screw-top Schweppes tonic bottle and he took it to their IDV client, Tom Jago, who liked it immediately.
The name came from a Soho bistro
The name was found above a door. The agency was looking at new offices on Greek Street, above a restaurant called Baileys Bistro. Gluckman wanted an “Anglo-Irish” family-style name, and there it was. He tried to link it to a dairy of that name from his South African childhood, but when he phoned his mother she told him there had never been one. The bistro’s owners, he wrote, were “not an especially Irish pair”.
The first label carried an address that was, in his words, “a complete fabrication”: “The Dairy Distillery, County Monaghan”. He briefed a graphic designer, Bob Wagner, to give it the Kerrygold look of contented cows and green pastures, and the design they chose was, he says, close to the label on the bottle today. They called it an “Irish Cream Chocolate Liqueur”.
Three slow years, then a billion bottles
It was not an instant hit. Gluckman writes that the idea was presented in 1973 and launched in 1974, and that it took another three years before it began to look like a winner. His agency was paid about £3,000 all-in for the development. He also writes that on 3 December 2007 Diageo announced the sale of the billionth bottle of Baileys since 1973.
So the next time you pour one, you are drinking an idea that began as a Soho experiment, with Irish whiskey, Irish cream and a spoon of drinking chocolate. For the longer version of this story, see how Baileys Irish Cream was invented in London. For more Baileys in the kitchen, try our no-bake Baileys cheesecake or the Guinness and Baileys chocolate cake.
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How to make Baileys hot chocolate (serves 2)
This is our own recipe, not Gluckman’s. It is for adults, so serve it as you would any drink with a liqueur in it.
Ingredients
- 400 ml whole milk
- 60 g dark chocolate (about 50 to 70% cocoa), finely chopped
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp caster sugar, or to taste
- 80 ml Baileys Irish Cream
- Lightly whipped cream and a little grated chocolate, to finish
Method
- Warm the milk in a small saucepan over a low heat until steaming, but not boiling.
- Whisk in the cocoa powder and sugar until smooth.
- Add the chopped chocolate and whisk for 2 to 3 minutes until it has melted completely.
- Take the pan off the heat and stir in the Baileys. Do not boil it after this point.
- Pour into two warm mugs, top with the whipped cream and grated chocolate, and drink while hot.
Would you drink Baileys in hot chocolate, or over ice?
Sources
- In 1973, I invented a ‘girly drink’ called Baileys, David Gluckman, The Irish Times, 2 October 2017
Checked November 2026.
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