Sometimes, you want to up your fancy cocktail game with an awesome champagne cocktail. I like to call those days “weekdays” personally. For you, it might be a special occasion, have some left over champagne from a party or just want a sexy little bubbly number because why not. Well then, have a Kir Royale!

In the grand tradition of champagne cocktails, the trick is to keep them simple. The star of the show is, inevitably, the champagne. Your job, fine cocktail mixer, is not to screw it up by fiddling too much. It’s like cooking in that respect, use quality ingredients and don’t fiddle with them too much.

Now that we have that out of the way, here’s what you need: champagne and crème de cassis.

Ta da!

In case you’re unfamiliar, crème de cassis is a liqueur made from black currants. Take them, crush ’em, soak ’em in alcohol, add some sugar and you have it. It’s a tad bit more involved than that, but that’s the thumbnail sketch of production.

As the crème de cassis is 50% of your ingredients, get a good one. Oh, if you want to change it up and go with, say, a raspberry liqueur (looking at you Chambord), that’s a very fine option indeed! Though, for your first one, try the classic.

The only other ingredient is your champagne. Being a proud Californian, I like a nice sparkling from around here, but scale up or down to your heart’s content. Don’t go too fancy though, the same way you wouldn’t use an Eagle Rare 17 in a cocktail, you might not want to use your fanciest bubbly either.

Unless you’re hardcore, then at least wait for me to visit!

Now, the Kir Royale!

January 8th, 2016 | by morgan