Kir
Dry white wine stained deep pink with a splash of blackcurrant liqueur — France's simplest aperitif.
- Difficulty
- easy
- Prep time
- 2 min
- Strength
- 12.8% ABV
- Glassware
- Wine glass
- Base
- liqueur led
- Serves
- 1
Related drinks
Ingredients
- Crème de cassis15ml
Adjust up or down to taste — this is a to-taste drink, not a fixed ratio
- Dry white wine135ml
A crisp, high-acid white such as Aligoté or Sauvignon Blanc; well chilled
Garnish: Lemon twist (optional)
Method
- Chill a wine glass and the bottle of white wine beforehand.
- Pour the crème de cassis into the glass first.
- Top slowly with the chilled white wine.
- Stir once, gently, to combine and even out the colour.
- Add a lemon twist if using.
Equipment
Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.
Jigger
Household swap: A tablespoon measure (1 tbsp ≈ 15ml).
Bar spoon
Household swap: Any long-handled spoon works for a single gentle stir.
Missing an ingredient?
Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.
Instead of White Wine
Best substitute: Sparkling Wine
This is the base in this drink.
Quantity: Use the same amount
Flavour impact: Produces a Kir Royale — lighter, fizzier and a touch more festive than the still original.
What changes
Expect more texture. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.
- Texture ↑
- The drink gains carbonation, which lifts the aromatics and makes it taste drier than its sugar content suggests.
- Character
- Both are crisp, and you lose light, acidic and fruity, and you gain effervescent, dry and bright. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.
To correct for it
- Add it last and stir once, gently, so the bubbles survive.
High confidenceA well-established, widely served named variation using the same cassis-first build.Shifts the drinkBecomes a variationInstead of Crème de Cassis
Best substitute: Chambord
This is the modifier in this drink.
Flavour impact: Swaps blackcurrant for raspberry — sweeter and jammier, with less of cassis's tart edge.
What changes
Expect less sweetness. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.
- Sweetness ↓
- Less sweetness leaves the acid and the spirit more exposed, so the drink will taste sharper and drier than it should.
- Character
- Both are jammy, sweet and rich, and you lose blackcurrant, and you gain raspberry. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.
To correct for it
- Add a little more syrup, a small amount at a time, until the edges come back together.
Moderate confidenceA workable substitute that changes the character of the drink noticeably.Shifts the drink
Make it better
- Pour the cassis in first, not last — topping with wine mixes it more evenly than adding cassis to a full glass.
- Use a genuinely dry, high-acid white wine. A soft or already-sweet wine plus cassis quickly tips the drink into cloying territory.
- Start with less cassis than you think you need — it's easy to add more, harder to take out.
- Express the citrus peel by pinching it, skin-side down, over the drink before dropping it in — this releases aromatic oils across the surface.
Rescue this drink
- Tastes too sweet
- Cut the cassis back to 10ml, or choose a drier white wine next time.
- Colour looks pale rather than rosy
- Use a touch more cassis — brands vary in both colour intensity and sweetness.
- Tastes flat or warm
- Both components need to be properly chilled beforehand; there's no ice in the glass to compensate.
- You cannot smell itgeneral guidance
- Most of a drink's aroma is on top of it, not in it. Squeeze the peel skin-side-down over the surface before dropping it in — the oil should visibly spray. A twist placed in the glass without being expressed contributes almost nothing. Aroma also fades fastest of anything in a drink, so garnish at the moment of serving rather than in advance.
- Too weak or waterygeneral guidance
- Add a splash more of the base spirit rather than extra mixer. For stirred or built drinks, over-dilution from ice is the usual cause — try a shorter stir or fewer, larger ice cubes.
- Too sourgeneral guidance
- Add a little more sweetener (simple syrup or the cocktail's usual sweetening ingredient), a small amount at a time.
Make ahead & storage
Batches well
Everything in this can be mixed days ahead and kept cold. It is one of the drinks to build a party menu around.
What it tastes like
The taste, and what drives it
off-dry, balanced, very light — a long and lengthened drink served straight up, no ice.
Off-dry
Dry → Sweet
Sweetened enough to take the edge off without reading as a sweet drink.
What drives it: Crème de cassis — carries the most sugar into the glass.
Balanced
Soft → Sharp
Enough acidity to keep the drink awake without dominating it.
What drives it: Dry white wine — supplies the acidity.
Very light
Light → Rich
Almost weightless in the mouth — closer to a long soft drink than to a sipper.
What drives it: Dry white wine — adds most of the weight.
Moderate
Delicate → Bold
Moderate: assertive enough to hold its own, mild enough for a second.
What drives it: Dry white wine — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.
What you smell first
- Orchard fruitLeads
From Dry white wine
- Citrus peelLeadsBefore the first sip
From Lemon twist (optional)
Aromas marked as sitting above the drink reach you before the first sip — skipping that garnish changes the drink more than its size suggests.
How it was worked out
Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. Almost everything in this drink has detailed ingredient data behind it.
How balance actually works →If it isn't right
What goes wrong with this drink, and why
Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — each with the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.
It's too sweet
- Likely cause
- Crème de cassis is carrying the sugar here, and it is the easiest thing in the drink to over-pour — syrup clings to a jigger and a "splash" is rarely the same twice.
- What to change
- Cut crème de cassis by about a third and rebuild. If it is already made, a squeeze of citrus is faster than starting again.
- What that does
- The drink will read sharper as well as less sweet, because the acid stops being balanced. That is usually the intention, but it is a bigger change than it sounds.
It's too sour
- Likely cause
- Dry white wine varies more than any other ingredient in the drink. Limes differ by weeks of ripeness, and a sharp one can be half again as acidic as a mild one at the same measure.
- What to change
- Add sweetener a few millilitres at a time rather than diluting — you are correcting a ratio, not a concentration.
- What that does
- Sourness recedes and the drink gains a little weight. Overshoot and you will be reading the too-sweet entry above instead.
It tastes weak
- Likely cause
- Usually dilution rather than measurement: building in the glass adds water as it chills, and wet or small ice adds far more of it than cold, large ice does.
- What to change
- Use larger, colder ice and work faster. Adding more spirit fixes the symptom and unbalances everything else.
- What that does
- The drink gains definition without gaining sugar. It will also read as slightly sharper, which is what 'more presence' usually means in practice.
It doesn't smell of anything
- Likely cause
- The aroma you are missing is probably citrus peel, which sits above the drink rather than in it — skipping or under-expressing the garnish removes it entirely.
- What to change
- Express the peel over the surface with the skin facing the drink, then drop it in. Herbs go in the glass, not on the side.
- What that does
- Aroma arrives before flavour does, so the whole drink reads as more intense without a single measure changing. The oil does land in the drink, though — an over-expressed peel adds a faint bitterness to the first mouthful.
It tastes one-dimensional
- Likely cause
- With 2 components there is nowhere for complexity to hide — a long and lengthened drink is exposed by design, so a dull one is usually a dull ingredient rather than a missing step.
- What to change
- Change the quality of what is there before adding anything new: fresh citrus rather than bottled, a better base bottle, a dash of bitters. Bitters add layers at a scale nothing else matches.
- What that does
- More going on at the same strength and sweetness. Adding a whole extra ingredient instead usually produces a muddier drink rather than a deeper one.
Taste profile
- Sweetness
- 2/5
- Sourness
- 2/5
- Bitterness
- 0/5
- Strength
- 1/5
- Fruitiness
- 3/5
- Freshness
- 3/5
- Creaminess
- 0/5
- Smokiness
- 0/5
Nutrition & alcohol
Estimate onlyBased on a standard 15ml cassis pour and 135ml dry white wine at 12% ABV; cassis brands vary in strength and sweetness.- Calories
- 130 kcal
- Sugar
- 9 g
- Carbohydrates
- 10 g
- Alcohol units (UK)
- 1.9
- US standard drinks
- 1.08
- ABV
- 12.8%
- Serving size
- 150 ml
Show calculation assumptions
Source: Calculated from standard measures
Calorie breakdown: ~106 kcal from alcohol, ~24 kcal from sugar and mixers.
Likely range: 98–163 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.
Assumes crème de cassis at roughly 20% ABV and a dry white wine at 12% ABV.
These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.
Variations
Kir Royale
Replace the white wine with chilled sparkling wine for a fizzier, more celebratory version.
Communard
Replace the white wine with red wine for a deeper-coloured, more tannic take, traditionally named after the Paris Commune.
What kind of drink this is
The structure behind the recipe
A built build: a long and lengthened liqueur-led-based drink, served straight up, no ice — clean in the mouth.
Long and lengthened
A short measure stretched with a mixer or juice — the drink's length, not its concentration, is the point of it.
Base
Dry white wine
Modifier
Crème de cassis
Technique
built
Components are poured into the serving glass over ice and stirred once, or not at all. Dilution happens while you drink rather than before.
The drink changes as you go: strongest at the first sip, longest and most diluted at the last. That drift is a feature of a long drink and a fault in a short one.
What it ruins: Nothing, but it cannot properly combine anything viscous — a syrup poured last will sit at the bottom.
Everything about building in the glass →How the technique works →Dilution
In the glass, as you drink
Water from ice typically makes up around 15% of the finished drink for a built build (commonly 10–20%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.
Why dilution is an ingredient →Served
Straight up, no ice
Wine glass · 150ml
Chilled during mixing and then strained away from the ice, so it arrives at its coldest and most concentrated and warms from the first sip — which is why 150ml is the right size for it.
Texture and aroma
Nothing here thickens or aerates the drink — it is as light in the mouth as the liquid itself.
Aroma arrives before flavour does. A citrus twist is expressed over the surface so its oils sit on top of the drink — skipping it changes the drink more than its size suggests.
Where to go from here
Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.
Where it comes from
Origin and family
Origin of the Kir
French aperitif from Burgundy, popularised in the mid-20th century by Dijon mayor Canon Félix Kir.
On drinks history
Cocktail origin stories are frequently repeated and rarely evidenced. Our history section separates what is documented from what is folklore rather than picking whichever version reads best.
History and culture →Try this next
Use up your ingredients
Bought a bottle just for this? Here's what else it's good for.
Related tools
Scale this for a party
Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.
Recipe confidence
A simple, well-documented two-ingredient classic with broadly agreed proportions.