Kir Royal – The Summer Extravagance

I was having this book “A2Z” handy lately. Written by Japanese writer Amy Yamada, the book illustrated some adulterous relationships between a love-pentagon. Amongst the multitude of drinking scenes in the story, this particular line is rather intriguing: “Those fused aromas of raspberries in the champagne drift…”, instead of the strawberry that are always used in Kir Royal, they put blackcurrant in Kir Imperial, this fascinated me.

The evolution of Kir cocktail never stops, thus there are plenty of flavour combinations existing. It is believed that this popular cocktail drink was called “Blanc-cass” before World War II, until after war, Felix Kir, the Mayor of Dijon in Bourgogne, validated the ratio of Crème de Cassis and Bourgogne Aligoté white wine to be 2:1, since then it was named after him.

For the elegant and extravagant pinkish Kir Royal, Champagne is being used instead of white wine; more sparkles, more appealing.

Kir and its related drinks have been promoted to more than sixty countries subsequent to the trademark registration of Kir in 1952. Kir and Kir Royal are available in most of the bistros or French restaurants, they might not be the exact same ingredients or ratios, but 90% of them have Champagne in the drinks.

Some of the traditional French wine bars and restaurants insist not to provide Kir Royal to their customers. The reason behind it is many people in the French wine trade consider Champagne as a glorious beverage, each and every single bottle of it is unique due to the terroir and winemaking. These traditionalists think blending Champagne in a cocktail would spoil the art of it, therefore they refuse to sell Kir for business as a token of respect to the houses’ histories and brand philosophies.

It would be a pleasurable enjoyment to sip a glass of refreshingly flavorful and bubbly Kir Royal in the hot summer season.

Make your own Kir Royal: 1 part of Crème de Cassis 9 parts of Champagne

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