Cocktail · Light & sessionable
Kir Royale
Champagne over crème de cassis — France's two-ingredient celebration.
How to order it: Cassis first, Champagne after, flute always. Burgundy's gift to apéritif hour.
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The recipe
- ½ oz crème de cassis
- 5 oz chilled Champagne
- Cassis first, bubbles after
- Flute
- Optional lemon twist
The story
The Kir Royale is named for Felix Kir, a Catholic canon, Resistance figure, and the famously flinty postwar mayor of Dijon, who poured the local blanc-cassis, Burgundy's aligote white wine with creme de cassis, at every official reception until the drink simply took his name. Swap the still wine for Champagne and the drink gets its royale. It is aperitif culture at its most efficient: two ingredients, one color, instant occasion. It endures because France understood early that celebration scales down beautifully, and that a blackcurrant blush in a flute can make a Tuesday feel like a treaty signing.
Adjacent pours