Kir Royale
A Kir Royale is 10ml of crème de cassis in a chilled flute, topped slowly with 90ml of cold brut champagne and not stirred. No garnish is needed. About 1.2 UK units. These are the IBA’s Kir measures, with champagne in place of white wine as the IBA’s own note directs. The Kir is named for Félix Kir, mayor of Dijon after the Second World War, who served blackcurrant liqueur with white Burgundy at civic receptions and so promoted two of the region’s products. Before that the drink was simply blanc-cassis. The Royale is the same idea with champagne. One part cassis in ten keeps it dry: the liqueur colours the wine and rounds its acidity without making it sweet. French cafés often pour nearer one in five, and 19th-century recipes went as far as a third. Champagne contains sulphites.
Variations
Glassware: Champagne Flute
Garnish: Single blackcurrant (optional)
Ingredients
10ml
Blackcurrant liqueur, usually 15 to 20% ABV. It brings all the colour and the sugar, so a good Dijon cassis that tastes of the fruit makes the difference.
90ml
Brut, at about 12% ABV, and properly cold. A dry crémant works as well and costs less. Contains sulphites.
Instructions
Chill a champagne flute.
Pour the crème de cassis into the flute.
Top slowly with the cold champagne, poured down the side of the glass.
Serve without stirring.
Source: the IBA (IBA Kir with champagne, as its Kir Royal note directs; method ours). Last checked 10 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Pour the cassis first and the champagne slowly down the side of the flute. The liqueur is denser than the wine, and a slow pour lifts it through the glass on its own; a spoon only knocks out the bubbles. Spend the money on the cassis. At 10ml it is the only flavour in the glass besides the wine, and a cheap one tastes of sugar and colouring. Crème de cassis de Dijon is the name to look for. If one in ten is too dry for you, sweeten with the cassis, not the wine. Go to 15ml or 20ml rather than switching to a sweeter sparkling wine, which dulls the blackcurrant.
Behind the Kir Royale
Flavour Profile
Blanc-Cassis Becomes Kir
Blackcurrant liqueur and white wine were a café drink in Burgundy long before they had a name, called blanc-cassis once crème de cassis was being made commercially in the 1840s.
Félix Kir, mayor of Dijon after the Second World War, served it at receptions for visiting delegations and so promoted two of the region’s products at once. He allowed one Dijon cassis maker to use his name, then its competitors too. The champagne version takes the same name with a royal suffix.
One Part in Ten
The IBA pours 10ml of cassis to 90ml of wine. At that ratio the cassis colours the glass, rounds the champagne’s acidity and leaves the wine in charge.
Sweeter versions are older, not wrong. Most people now find the 19th-century third far too sweet; one in five is a common French pour. Pick the ratio deliberately, because a heavy hand on the cassis bottle is how most of these end up too sweet.
Cassis to wine in the Kir, by source
IBA (and ours)
- Cassis
- 10ml
- Wine
- 90ml
- Character
- Dry, wine-led
Common French pour
- Cassis
- About one part in five
- Wine
- The rest
- Character
- Fruitier, softer
19th-century blanc-cassis
- Cassis
- About a third
- Wine
- Two thirds
- Character
- Sweet
| Source | Cassis | Wine | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| IBA (and ours) | 10ml | 90ml | Dry, wine-led |
| Common French pour | About one part in five | The rest | Fruitier, softer |
| 19th-century blanc-cassis | About a third | Two thirds | Sweet |
The Cassis
With only two ingredients, the liqueur decides the drink. A good cassis tastes of blackcurrant, with a sharp, slightly leafy edge under the sweetness. A poor one adds colour and sugar and nothing to stand on.
Once open, cassis fades. Keep it in the fridge and use it within a few months, or the fruit dulls before the bottle is finished.
The Kir and Its Relatives
The family changes the wine or the liqueur and keeps the shape. A Kir Pétillant uses other sparkling wine, a Kir Impérial swaps the cassis for raspberry liqueur over champagne, a Communard uses red wine, and a Kir Normand uses Normandy cider, which is alcoholic.
How to Serve It
Before dinner, in a cold flute, poured to order. A single blackcurrant is the only garnish worth adding, and the drink is complete without it.
On still white wine it is a Kir; for champagne with a bitters-soaked sugar cube, a Champagne Cocktail; for cassis and champagne over vodka and lemon, a Russian Spring Punch.
Make it at home
The Spirit
Crème de CassisCrème de cassis is a French blackcurrant liqueur, most often 15% ABV, and the law makes it the sweetest of the crèmes: at least 400g of sugar a litre, against 250g for any other. That is why it goes in by the 10ml or 15ml. It turns dry white wine into a Kir, champagne into a Kir Royale, and colours the El Diablo and the Russian Spring Punch.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in a Kir Royale?
Who was Kir?
What is the right ratio for a Kir Royale?
What is the difference between a Kir and a Kir Royale?
Should I stir a Kir Royale?
Can I use prosecco instead of champagne?
How strong is a Kir Royale?
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Champagne Cocktail
A Champagne Cocktail is a sugar cube soaked with two dashes of Angostura and dropped into a chilled flute, then 10ml of cognac and 90ml of cold champagne poured slowly down the side, with a lemon twist expressed over the top. It is never stirred. About 1.5 UK units. Jerry Thomas printed it in 1862 without the brandy: sugar, bitters and champagne. Later recipes added cognac, and the IBA now lists 10ml, with a few optional drops of Grand Marnier. With the cognac in, it matches the first printed definition of a cocktail, from a Hudson, New York, newspaper in 1806: spirits, sugar, water and bitters, with the wine doing the work of the water. The cube is the reason to make it. It sits at the bottom of the flute, dissolving slowly and sending up a thin line of bubbles, so the first sips are dry and the last are sweeter and more spiced.
Negroni Sbagliato
A Negroni Sbagliato is 30ml of Campari and 30ml of sweet vermouth stirred briefly over ice in a rocks glass, topped with 30ml of cold brut prosecco poured down the side, with an orange slice. About 1.6 UK units, two thirds of a Negroni’s. Sbagliato means mistaken. Campari dates it to 1972, at Bar Basso in Milan, when Mirko Stocchetto, reaching for the gin to make a Negroni, poured sparkling wine instead; Difford’s Guide puts it in the late 1980s. The bar kept the drink, and the name Negroni Sbagliato is registered by Bar Basso as a trade mark. It sits on the rung between an Americano and a Negroni: bitter and vermouth-rich like both, with wine’s body and a fine sparkle where the soda or the gin would be. The bubbles are the fragile part, so the prosecco goes in last and is barely stirred.
French 75
A French 75 is 30ml of London Dry gin, 15ml of fresh lemon juice and 15ml of sugar syrup, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds, double strained into a chilled flute and topped with 60ml of cold brut champagne, with a lemon twist. About 1.9 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s. The name is the French army’s 75mm field gun of the First World War. The drink is usually credited to Harry MacElhone and Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, often with the date 1915, but the printed record starts later. MacElhone’s ‘75’ of 1922 was calvados, gin, grenadine and absinthe. The gin, lemon, sugar and champagne recipe appears under the name French 75 in Here’s How, by Judge Jr., in 1927. Built that way, it is a Tom Collins with champagne in place of soda: a short gin sour that the wine lengthens and lifts.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 12 October 2026