The Kir
I love this cocktail for three reasons. First, there is absolutely no controversy about the name, the ingredients or the origins. Secondly, the gentleman who created it perfectly married pragmatism and marketing. Thirdly, the cocktail is cool, simple and easy to execute.
Now the kir was around ages before it was known as a kir. The combination of cassis and wine has a long history from Burgundy to Normandy, but it would have been an alcoholic afterthought in the annals of bartending if not for Félix Kir, Mayor of Dijon during WWII and its aftermath. Now during the occupation, the vineyard owners did not want their best wines going to Germany, so they kept the best for themselves, the Chardonnay, and provided the Germans with wines made from Aligote, a pedestrian grape grown in areas not deemed worthy of better grapes. Well during the war the vineyard owners were making a lot of Aligote, and after the war they still had the vines and they could not bottle it as Burgundy, but the people needed to make money to rebuild after the war. In steps Mayor Kir and his great marketing scheme. There was no market for Aligote, but he could not give up this opportunity to raise capital for his rural community. So as the mayor of the largest town in the central part of France at the most northern part of Burgundy in the area of Chablis, he set upon a series of celebratory and trade stimulating dinners at his home. Before each dinner they had the Aligote flavored with Creme de Cassis from locally grown cassis. Before you know it you had GI’s asking for the Aligote and Cassis in towns all over France. That story was given to me from a GI turned wine lover who is now deceased so it cannot be verified, so I give it to you as is. I don’t know if it is the whole truth, but the man who gave it to me believed it to be so and that’s about as good as it gets in cocktail legend.
Modern incarnations call for only a splash of creme de cassis for color, but as the original martini and manhattans had much more vermouth than our modern incarnations, I think the originals were created purposefully sweet with significant amount of creme de cassis.
Ingredients
4 oz White Wine (In honor of Mayor Kir, use the cheapest dry French White you can find or something you accidentally left open in the refrigerator too long)
1 oz Creme de Cassis
Garnish
Nothing really but use an orange twist if you are feeling fancy
Glassware
12 oz or similar white wine glass
Assembly
Measure chilled white wine and add to the glass. Top with creme de cassis, and swirl in the glass.
Suggestions
Dry is the opposite of sweet. So when I say dry white wine what I really mean is anything not sweet. Aligote is very neutral. If you have any Italian Pinot Grigio in the house that would make a great substitution but just don’t tell the French.