Kir
A Kir is 10ml of crème de cassis in a chilled wine glass, topped slowly with 90ml of cold dry white wine and not stirred: the wine mixes it on the way in. No ice and no garnish. About 1.2 UK units. The IBA uses these measures. Wine contains sulphites. It was blanc-cassis in Burgundy’s cafés before it was a Kir. Félix Kir, a priest and Resistance veteran who was mayor of Dijon from 1945 until his death in 1968, served it to visiting delegations and lent his name to the region’s cassis makers. One part cassis to nine of wine keeps it dry. The liqueur colours the glass and softens a sharp wine, and the traditional wine, Bourgogne Aligoté, is sharp for exactly that reason.
Glassware: Wine Glass
Garnish:
Ingredients
90ml
Bourgogne Aligoté by tradition: dry, unoaked and sharp, at about 12% ABV. Muscadet or Picpoul do the same job. An oaked white goes soft and heavy under cassis. Wine contains sulphites.
10ml
At about 15% ABV. Once open, keep it in the fridge and use it within a few months, before the fruit dulls.
Instructions
Chill the wine and a wine glass.
Pour the crème de cassis into the glass.
Top slowly with the cold white wine.
Serve without stirring and without ice.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification; method ours). Last checked 10 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Pour the cassis first and the wine over it, slowly. The cassis is denser, and the pour lifts it through the glass; a spoon adds nothing and takes the edge off the wine. Spend on the cassis rather than the wine. A good crème de cassis tastes of blackcurrant with a leafy edge, and a poor one adds sugar and colour. The wine wants to be dry, sharp and unoaked, and an expensive bottle is wasted under the liqueur. Chill the wine well and serve the drink before a meal. Warm, the cassis turns syrupy.
Behind the Kir
Flavour Profile
From Blanc-Cassis to Kir
Crème de cassis was being made commercially in Burgundy from the 1840s, and white wine with a measure of it became a regional café drink, known simply as blanc-cassis.
Félix Kir, a priest who had worked with the Resistance, became mayor of Dijon in 1945 and held the office until he died in 1968. He served blanc-cassis at receptions for visiting delegations, which promoted the region’s white wine and its cassis together, and he let a Dijon cassis maker use his name, then its competitors too.
One account holds that wartime requisitions of red Burgundy moved the drink from red wine to white. It is told often and documented poorly.
Why Aligoté
Aligoté is Burgundy’s other white grape. It makes a lean, sharp, unoaked wine, and that acidity is what a small measure of sweet liqueur needs to work against. A rounder, oaked white gives the cassis nothing to soften, and the glass tastes heavy.
Any dry, high-acid white does the job: Muscadet, Picpoul, a plain Sauvignon Blanc. Keep the money for the cassis.
One Part to Nine
At 10ml to 90ml, the cassis colours the wine pink and rounds its acidity, and the drink still tastes of wine. Double it and it becomes a blackcurrant drink with wine in it. The older, sweeter ratios are a choice rather than an error, so pick the proportion instead of drifting into it.
The Kir Family
The Kir beside the Kir Royale, Kir Pétillant, Communard and Kir Normand
Kir
- Liqueur
- 10ml crème de cassis
- Wine or cider
- 90ml dry white wine, about 12% ABV
- UK units
- About 1.2
Kir Royale
- Liqueur
- 10ml crème de cassis
- Wine or cider
- 90ml champagne, about 12% ABV
- UK units
- About 1.2
Kir Pétillant
- Liqueur
- 10ml crème de cassis
- Wine or cider
- 90ml other sparkling wine
- UK units
- About 1.1 to 1.2
Communard
- Liqueur
- 10ml crème de cassis
- Wine or cider
- 90ml red wine, about 13% ABV
- UK units
- About 1.3
Kir Normand
- Liqueur
- 10ml crème de cassis
- Wine or cider
- 90ml Normandy cider, about 5% ABV
- UK units
- About 0.6
| Drink | Liqueur | Wine or cider | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kir | 10ml crème de cassis | 90ml dry white wine, about 12% ABV | About 1.2 |
| Kir Royale | 10ml crème de cassis | 90ml champagne, about 12% ABV | About 1.2 |
| Kir Pétillant | 10ml crème de cassis | 90ml other sparkling wine | About 1.1 to 1.2 |
| Communard | 10ml crème de cassis | 90ml red wine, about 13% ABV | About 1.3 |
| Kir Normand | 10ml crème de cassis | 90ml Normandy cider, about 5% ABV | About 0.6 |
How to Serve It
In a chilled wine glass, without ice, poured to order and drunk before the meal. Cassis first, wine over it, no spoon.
With champagne, a Kir Royale; for champagne over a bitters-soaked sugar cube, a Champagne Cocktail.
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?
Who was Kir?
What wine should I use in a Kir?
Should I stir a Kir?
How much cassis goes in a Kir?
What is the difference between a Kir and a Kir Royale?
How strong is a Kir?
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 11 October 2026