Kir recipie

[jBo]

After going to France, I fell in love with kirs ... after having them at the beginning of every meal. My name is Jen, I am an addict.

OK, my question ... I know a kir is white wine and creme de cassis ... but what kind of white wine? I also need to find a good creme de cassis ... not Hiram Walker, or whatever $4 bottles are out there.

Any suggestions?

[afn33282]

Originally it was aligote'. I think this is a white from a rarer grape (aligote) of Burgundy. Nowadays I hear Chablis, too. Hope this helps.

[jBo]

Originally it was aligote'.  I think this is a white from a rarer grape (aligote) of Burgundy.  Nowadays I hear Chablis, too.  Hope this helps.

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Kickass, AFN! I bought a couple bottles of Chablis from the Laroche Monastary in Chablis! Now to find a good brand of creme de cassis....

P.S. Your signature...it's from a movie, right?

[KatieLoeb]

Any screechingly acidic white will do. The original idea was to sweeten up the tart aligote with the cassis to make it more palatable. Usually an unoaked chardonnay, but a low level Sancerre might benefit from a bit of cassis too.

[Eden]

I can't recall the brand right now, but make sure you get an actual French brand of Cassis. We compared the good french stuff with the cheap domestic version, and it was like night & day. The real Cassis, was significantly darker, and had an intense taste of black currant. the domestic was just sweet and generically fruity. The good stuff costs about twice as much, but it's worth it...

Oh and if you haven't tried it yet, bust out from the white wine & try a Kir Normande, made with pear cider

[Holly Moore]

I've always enjoyed a bit of cointreau in my kirs

[Jaymes]

And, I've been told, if you make it with Champagne, it's a Kir Royale.

[britcook]

The Laroche Chablis may be a little bit too good to "waste" on a Kir (named after a former mayor of Dijon), as Katie Loeb so rightly says the original Kir is made with a wine with high acidity, in this case a balanced wine may not be the best. Whatever you use the trick is to add the right amount of cassis to the wine, my advice is to remove 4 tablespoons of wine from the bottle and replace them with the same amount of cassis. Most people add too much cassis which totally overwhelms the wine.

[eje]

Oh and if you haven't tried it yet, bust out from the white wine & try a Kir Normande, made with pear cider 

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Or Kir Breton with a lovely dry French style apple cider!

mmmmm....

[KatieLoeb]

Oh and if you haven't tried it yet, bust out from the white wine & try a Kir Normande, made with pear cider 

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Ooooooh! I have Pear Cider (Woodchuck bottled) in the fridge right now! No Cassis in the bar but perhaps I'll have to remedy that.

That sounds just delicious!!!

[Eden]

Oh and if you haven't tried it yet, bust out from the white wine & try a Kir Normande, made with pear cider 

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Or Kir Breton with a lovely dry French style apple cider!

mmmmm....

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ooh I haven't tried that, and I think we have apple cider in the house as well as pear - something else for tomorrow night's menu

[Jaymes]

Kir Royales are my number one drink that I serve before dinner parties. I serve them in champagne flutes. I rub a lemon wedge on the rim of the flute, pour a very small amount of Cassis in, and then fill with champagne.

Don't know if any of this is "right," but I've been doing it for a very long time and it's always well received. In fact, I bought particularly festive flutes just for this purpose.

They are beautiful to look at, extremely tasty, and clearly, blazingly easy. A winning combination.

Edited July 14, 2005 by Jaymes (log)

[phaelon56]

Hmmm... when I visited Paris in January my GF of that time ordered a Kir before dinner the first evening (she hadn't had one in years) and felt that it wasn't the drink she remembered. I spotted a Kir Royale on the menu the next evening and she tried that instead. It was what she sought and I have a distinct recollection that there was in fact another ingredient apart form champagne and creme de cassis.

If I recall correctly it was Cointreau - exactly what Holly mentions enjoying in his. Can one of you well traveled folks confirm that this is how a Kir Royale is often made in France? I think the formula that had the third ingredient showed up on more than one menu.

[jBo]

If I recall correctly it was Cointreau - exactly what Holly mentions enjoying in his. Can one of you well traveled folks confirm that this is how a Kir Royale is often made in France?  I think the formula that had the third ingredient showed up on more than one menu.

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I think you're thinking Chambord ... that's a variation of a Kir or Kir Royale, but Creme de Cassis is the original (and it originated in France). Cointreau is an orange liqueur (with cassis? ).

[bethesdabakers]

Why not make your own crème de cassis - much better than the expensive bottles you buy over the counter. We use it for kir, kir royale when the piggy bank is full, with sparkling mineral water in the summer, with boiling water in winter to fight off colds, to top ice creams, to flavour gravies. This comes from Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book:

Black currants 1kg

Red wine 1ltr

Sugar 1.5kg

Vodka c 0.75ltr (or available spirits)

Soak the black currants in the red wine for two days (you don’t have to be fussy about twigs and a few leaves).

The easiest way I have found of carrying out the next step is to strain off the wine and then to process the black currants in batches with enough wine to lubricate the processing. Then, in relatively small amounts, squeeze the pulp through a clean tea towel.

Add the resulting liquid to the wine. Measure. Pour into a large heavy pan and add 1kg of sugar to each litre of liquid. Heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Using a jam thermometer bring the liquid to what she describes as “above blood temperature but well below simmering and boiling points”. Not wanting to think about blood too much, that means about 80C to me. Maintain it at around this temperature for about 2 hours stirring from time to time until it is reduced a little. Allow to cool.

Place a measure (cup, mug, whatever) of booze in a large bowl. Add three measures of the cool syrup. Repeat until the syrup is used up.

Bottle (if you save your spirit bottles there isn’t even any need to wash). Ready in a couple of days; will keep for months – if allowed.

In France I’ve never seen any ingredients other than cassis and wine or cassis and champagne for kir and kir royale, but last year our favourite restaurant in Pyla sur mer was serving different flavours using blackberry, peach, etc. by varying the liqueur used. Never catch on.

Mick

[eje]

Why not make your own crème de cassis

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That sounds like a great idea, if I ever saw currants here.

Boohoo!

Sorry if this is a dumb question. I didn't have much luck with google.

What exactly does "crème" mean in the name of a liqueur?

I know it doesn't literally mean cream. Is it more like "crème de la crème"? Ultimate expression of an ingredient?

Chambord is a black raspberry liqueur, not cassis, BTW. I guess it would be a high class "crème de mure"?

-Erik

[bethesdabakers]

"Crème" just means cream. I don't think it has a precise technical meaning when it comes to liqueurs. But then crème de cassis is an alcoholic cordial rather than a liqueur.

You can buy (or make) crème de mure but that is made with blackberries.

(sadly down to the last bottle of cassis and hoping my neighbour has a bumper crop of blackcurrents coming to fruition.)

Mick

[carswell]

"Crème" just means cream. I don't think it has a precise technical meaning when it comes to liqueurs. But then crème de cassis is an alcoholic cordial rather than a liqueur.

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My understanding is that the definition is fairly strict: fruits or plant parts (including flowers) soaked in brandy or other spirits with sugar syrup.

Can't let this thread go by without mentioning a Kir variant invented a couple of years ago by an e-friend, Jenise Stone, who had just acquired her first jar of that Swedish staple, lignonberry preserves. To a flute of bubbly, she added a small dollop of the runny preserves, which sank to the bottom and flavoured the wine with increasing intensity as one drained the glass. And thus was born the Lars Royale. Taking her idea and running with it, I've since replaced the preserves with the lignonberry syrup sold at the IKEA food shops.

Now that Aligotés are no longer cheap, I look elsewhere for sharp whites for making still Kirs: the Loire (e.g. Muscadet, Cours-Cheverny), Switzerland (Fendant) and Austria (really low-end gruner veltliner).

[trillium]

While we're talking about lignonberry syrup, it makes a much nicer cosmopolitan then cranberry juice. Don't make many cocktails with vodka as the base, but that is one we like once in a while.

regards,

trillium

[Eden]

To a flute of bubbly, she added a small dollop of the runny preserves, which sank to the bottom and flavoured the wine with increasing intensity as one drained the glass. And thus was born the Lars Royale.

Now I know what to serve at my next Viking themed dinner

[gethin]

Two particularly good Kir variants that are popular in South West France are white wine with creme de chataigne (chestnut) and white wine (very often sparking) with creme de peche de vigne (peche de vigne is an extremely aromatic , intensly flavoured , red fleshed peach variety). Creme de peche de vigne with a good sparkling Mauzac works particularly well.

A Kir variant that most people probably won't rush to try is the Penclawdd Kir, invented at a particularly drunken late night session at my pub in West Wales. For those not familiar with Penclawdd, it is historically the centre of the Welsh cockle industry -the Penclawdd Kir substitutes the liquid from a jar of pickled cockles for the traditonal creme de cassis.

Quite the worst Kir I've ever tasted however was in a restaurant in Toulouse when my mother decided that the perfectly acceptable kir provided by the restaurant needed sweetening. Scrabbling around in her handbag she found a sugar lump which she dropped in the glass.

On tasting the Kir again it was clear that the sugar lump, during its time in the handbag, had had prolonged contact with an imperfectly closed bottle of perfume and had also collected a fair amount of fluff. The resulting drink was quite the vilest Kir I've tasted.

gethin

[KatieLoeb]

Two particularly good Kir variants that are popular in South West France are white wine with creme de chataigne (chestnut) and white wine (very often sparking) with creme de peche de vigne (peche de vigne is an extremely aromatic , intensly flavoured , red fleshed peach variety). Creme de peche de vigne with a good sparkling Mauzac works particularly well.

OK - those sound very tasty, particularly the peachy one!

A Kir variant that most people probably won't rush to try is the Penclawdd Kir, invented at a particularly drunken late night session at my pub in West Wales. For those not familiar with Penclawdd, it is historically the centre of the Welsh cockle industry -the Penclawdd Kir substitutes the liquid from a jar of pickled cockles for the traditonal creme de cassis.

Quite the worst Kir I've ever tasted however was in a restaurant in Toulouse  when my mother decided that the perfectly acceptable kir provided by the restaurant needed sweetening. Scrabbling around in her handbag she found a sugar lump which she dropped in the glass.

On tasting the Kir again it was clear that the sugar lump, during its time in the handbag, had had prolonged contact with an imperfectly closed bottle of perfume and had also collected a fair amount of fluff.  The resulting drink was quite the vilest Kir I've tasted.

gethin

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Can I just say EWWWWWWWWW to either of these? Blech! I don't think I could spit on the ground enough times to get that vile taste out of my mouth. YUCK!

[carswell]

Two particularly good Kir variants that are popular in South West France are  [...]  white wine (very often sparking) with creme de peche de vigne (peche de vigne is an extremely aromatic , intensly flavoured , red fleshed peach variety).

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Couldn't that also be considered a Bellini variant?

[little ms foodie]

I like to use Apremont for my kirs (which we have pretty much daily in our house) or Gasgonne (sp?)

You'll see many restaurants (at least in Paris) offer kir du maison using their own liquor- different flavors depending on the restaurant.

For kir royal I only use very inexpensive champagne (or sparkling CA or WA) as I think the taste of great champagne is a shame to mess with.

I know that using Crème de Cassis de Dijon Comptoir is traditional but I haven't found that in Seattle yet.

[gethin]

white wine (very often sparking) with creme de peche de vigne ).

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Couldn't that also be considered a Bellini variant?

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They are very different drinks - apart from the difference you get by using a peach liquer as opposed to peach puree, the proportions are very different. I would use only a teaspoon (or less) of the creme de peche to a glass of sparkling wine for the Kir as opposed to equal quantaties of pureed peach and sparkling wine for the Bellini.

gethin