Kir Royale

Boulevard Brasserie

36 Wellington Street
London

WC2E 7BD

This Kir Royale formed part of a French restaurant's set menu. The recipe is simply a splash of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) topped with champagne. I hope I'm not being too cynical in suspecting the champagne was probably a generic sparkling wine, to the disbenefit of nothing more than good manners and Trading Standards: as we all know, such a drink should properly be advertised as a Kir Pétillant. No matter, this was a good way of using fizz - with the dry bubbly and sweet blackcurrent playing well together.

Variations can switch out the crème de cassis in favour of de mûre (blackberry) or de pèche (peach), the latter sometimes known as a Kir Peche. A truncated Kir replaces the champagne with dry white wine.