Aperitifs kir and kir royale bring French joie de vivre to even mediocre wine and champagne

Kir and kir royale are well estab­lished aperitifs – particularly in France – for people who wish to add a touch of élan to ordinary wines. The recipe could hardly be simpler: just add a little crème de cassis blackcurrant liqueur to white wine or champagne.

Crème de cassis was introduced in 1841, and mixing it with white wine quickly became popular in France. The inter­national profile of the drink, however, is a post-second world war phenomenon, and credited to the man after whom what was originally called simply blanc-cassis is now named.

Félix Kir, a Catholic priest and hero of the French Resistance who later became mayor of the town of Dijon, made a point of serving the Burgundian version of blanc-cassis, made with dry white aligoté wine, to delegations visiting the town. He was an enthusiastic exponent of “twinning” Dijon with cities overseas, so a fair number of these delegations passed through.

The guests found the drink enjoy­able, and appreciated the simple recipe. It soon travelled, and the mayor’s name became attached to it, particularly after he started allowing producers of crème de cassis to put it on their bottle labels. Presumably this was helpful in promoting exports.

There is a theory that Kir started promoting the drink in the after­math of the war, when, for a time, only inferior Burgundy white wines were widely available. He is said to have advocated the use of crème de cassis to disguise their shortcomings.