Kir-ry On

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Well, I don’t know exactly when this new trend of mine started; it had to be about four to five weeks ago.  I do remember being out having drinks at Revolution House with a beautiful woman – she knows who she is -- and I asked the bartender to make me a Kir Royale.  Now, many people think that they know what this drink is, but honestly they have got it all wrong.  And being wrong at that point in time, I did do the wrong one, which was that I mixed Prosecco and Chambord. 

Now, many people think that a Kir Royale is Chambord and champagne, but they re wrong on two fronts.  First off, you can use any sparkling wine that isn’t dark, but then again, since it was invented a long time ago, who says that you can’t tweak the recipe and use sparkling Shiraz or a red sparkling Pinot Noir.  In any case, the wine part has to be not sweet.  The other ingredient is supposed to be a cassis liquer, and many folks will use Crème de Cassis (much thanks to Steve Helmus over at Capital Wine and Spirits who gave me the correct pronunciation).  And this can’t be Chambord!  Chambord is a raspberry (framboise) liquer, and this makes up a Kir Imperial.

In any case, this recipe again is up to debate, because there is something else called a Kir Pétillant which is cassis liquer with an sparkling wine!

However, what I have found is that certain sparkling wines, live a brut Cava, don’t go well with either liquer.

Now, the original concept of Kir, named after Felix Kir, who was the mayor of Dijon in the Burgundy region of France, was putting some cassis liquer in a glass, and then topping it off with a white wine.  All I can imagine is that this guy was a riot to hang out with.

So over the past few weeks, I have gone through several bottles of bubbly using both the raspberry and the cassis liquers, and the best was made by my girl Angela, who bartends over at La Famiglia.  One thing that I will say is that you only need a light touch of the liquer; overdo it and drink too many and you will be hurting.