Kir

Appetizer, Appetizers & Snacks, Drinks

A kir is a short, chilled French apéritif where dry white wine is laced with just enough blackcurrant liqueur to turn it lightly fruity, softly sweet, and very easy to drink before a meal.

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Prep Time 2 minutes mins

Total Time 2 minutes mins

Servings 1

Ingredients 

1x2x3x?

• 20 ml blackcurrant liqueur crème de cassis de Dijon
• 80 ml dry white wine any decent dry white wine

Equipment

champagne glass

Instructions

The base blackcurant liqueur

• Pour the crème de cassis into a wine glass.

Top up

• Top up with the chilled white wine.

Serve

• Serve immediately and enjoy!

Notes

• Modern kirs use 1/5 cassis to 4/5 wine. The original recipe from the early 1900s was 1/3 cassis to 2/3 wine, much sweeter. Today’s version is lighter, less alcoholic, easier to drink.
• Bourgogne Aligoté is the traditional white wine for this drink. It’s acidic, crisp, with green apple notes that cut through the sweetness of the blackcurrant. But don’t worry, any dry white wine works.
• The real blackcurrant liqueur is the so called “crème de cassis from Dijon” It’s about 15-20% alcohol, dark and intensely fruity. Other fruit liqueurs (peach, cherry, raspberry) don’t make a kir, they make a different drink entirely.
• A well-made kir is almost violet. Too pale and you haven’t added enough cassis. Too dark and it’ll be cloying.
• Serve the wine properly chilled instead of using ice. Ice dilutes the drink and ruins the balance.
• If you want to make a “Kir Royale”, just replace the white wine with Champagne or Crémant de Bourgogne. Same proportions.

About this recipe

At almost every summer apéro I’ve ever been to, the first words at the door have been the same: “Un kir ?” And really, who am I to say no to that little deceptive glass? It looks so innocent, tastes sweet and refreshing, and somehow always feels like a small celebration. It’s Burgundy’s quiet gift to the rest of France: officially just white wine and blackcurrant liqueur, but like most “simple” French things, there’s a lot more going on than it first seems.

The man behind the name

The drink is named after Chanoine Félix Kir, the priest‑mayor of Dijon who held office from 1945 to 1968. He did not invent it, but he gave it the kind of publicity most brands can only dream of. He served it at every official reception, proudly showcasing two local products that needed champions: Dijon’s crème de cassis and Burgundy’s Aligoté.

Aligoté is Burgundy’s other white grape. Chardonnay gets the headlines; Aligoté gets the village cafés. On its own it’s lean, sharp, quite acidic. Mix it with sweet cassis and it suddenly makes complete sense. The acidity slices through the sugar, the cassis rounds off the edges of the wine, and together they become something magical. Each improves the other; neither is at its best alone.

Where it really started

Like many things in France, the drink itself is older than the man whose name stuck to it. Most stories place its birth around 1904 in a café in Dijon called Le Montchapet, where someone (the owner or a quick‑thinking waitress, depending on who tells it) apparently poured white wine into a glass that already had cassis in it. The customer liked it, ordered another, and the idea caught on.

Locals called it blanc‑cassis (or blanc‑cass’ in the local accent), and it became the go‑to apéritif in Dijon long before Félix Kir arrived on the scene. When he became mayor after the war, he simply turned an existing habit into a symbol, serving it to every delegation and dignitary who passed through. Over time, people stopped asking for a blanc‑cassis and started asking for “un kir” instead. The name was formally trademarked in 1952, but by then it had pretty much escaped into common language.

Getting the proportions right

Old‑school recipes were much sweeter than what you normally get today, roughly one third cassis to two thirds wine. That makes for a pretty punchy, dessert‑like drink. Modern tastes run drier, so most people now use about one part cassis to four parts wine. You end up with something you can sip before a meal without spoiling your appetite.

The colour tells you if you’ve nailed it: a good kir is a deep pink, shading towards violet. If it looks pale and timid, you were mean with the cassis. If it’s thick, dark purple and syrupy, you went too far.

How people drink it in Burgundy

In Burgundy, there’s a bit of unspoken code around all this. If you walk into a bar in Dijon and order un blanc‑cass’, you’ll almost certainly be poured a kir. Locals rarely bother with the formal name. And if a bartender asks you un kir à quoi ? (“a kir with what?”), you’re probably not in Burgundy, because here, a kir is always cassis. Peach liqueur with white wine is blanc‑pêche, cherry is something else again, but they’re not kir.

The kir royale

The dressed‑up cousin is the kir royale. Same principle, but the white wine is replaced with sparkling: traditionally Crémant de Bourgogne, increasingly Champagne. It’s what people serve at weddings, christenings, or any occasion where there was going to be fizz on the table anyway. The cassis turns the bubbles a rose‑pink colour and suddenly your glass looks like it expects a speech.

You might see it written as kir royal in some places; in practice everyone means the same thing: bubbles, cassis, and an excuse to celebrate.

Other variations

France being France, there are a few regional twists. In Burgundy, if you use red wine instead of white, the drink becomes a Communard, named after the members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Communes in France. In Bordeaux, the same idea is called a Cardinal.

If you add a shot of vodka to an ordinary kir, you get what some people call a Double K, supposedly created when Félix Kir met Nikita Khrushchev and someone decided the drink ought to be as strong as the politics. Whether that story is strictly true or just too good to fact‑check, the name has lingered.

Choosing the right crème de cassis

With a drink this simple, the quality of the cassis really matters. A good crème de cassis should be thick, deeply fruity, and sweet without tasting like synthetic syrup. Dijon is famous for producing some of the best, often from the Noir de Bourgogne blackcurrant variety, which gives an intense colour and flavour.

If you’re making kir at home, this is not the place to grab the cheapest bottle on the bottom shelf. You only have two ingredients, both very visible and very immediate. Good cassis plus decent, crisp white wine will taste like a little holiday in Burgundy; weak cassis and anonymous wine will taste exactly like that combination.

Choosing the right white wine

Traditionally, a kir is made with Bourgogne Aligoté, but unless you live in France it can be surprisingly hard to track down. The good news is you don’t need to be precious about it. Any dry, crisp white will do the job.

If you want to stay French, a Muscadet from the Loire is perfect: easy to find, properly acidic, and usually kind to your wallet. A sharp Sauvignon Blanc (also from the Loire) also works beautifully. Pinot Grigio, a clean Chablis, or even a light Vinho Verde all play nicely too.

What you’re looking for is something light, dry, and bright enough to slice through the sweetness of the cassis. Avoid oaked whites (no buttery Chardonnay), anything off‑dry or sweet (skip Riesling and Moscato), and very perfumed wines like Gewürztraminer, which will just argue with the blackcurrant. If the wine on its own makes your mouth water a little, it will almost certainly make a good kir.

When to drink it

Kir is not a nightclub drink and you rarely see it in cocktail bars. It belongs to kitchens, dining rooms, and café counters. It’s what you hand people as they arrive for Sunday lunch, or what you order standing at the bar on a Saturday just before midday, maybe with a couple of Camembert bites or a some savoury biscuits.

It does exactly what an apéritif is meant to do: marks the start of the meal, gives people something to hold while they talk, wakes up the appetite without knocking you sideways.

Make it once, with decent wine and proper cassis, and you’ll understand why this little Burgundy invention has lasted more than a century.