If you count the Kir Royale’s ingredients on one hand, you’ll have two fingers left over. These are the sparkling cocktail’s only ingredients:
Ingredient quantities are detailed in the printable recipe card below.
Technically, you only need Champagne and Crème de Cassis to craft a Kir Royale. Accordingly, you don’t want to use lesser substitutes. As the saying goes: What you put in is what you get out.
Champagne
While you could use any sparkling wine to craft a Kir Royale, Champagne is the sparkler you want to use. Not only is Champagne specific to the Champagne region of France, but it’s also sparkling wine royalty.
Champagne producers must follow strict rules when they produce the bubbly elixir with chardonnay, pinot meunier and pinot noir grapes. Their production process involves two fermentations, one in a tank and one in the bottle, before the Champagne is aged, riddled and disgorged.
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Make no mistake. Champagne is a luxury product. However, savvy shoppers can purchase half-bottles for this recipe which is what we did when we bought a half-bottle of Taittinger. It’s best to look for the AOC label since there are a number of great bubblies from the Champagne region.
Pro Tip
Craft your Kir Royale with a Cremant from Burgundy if you want to drink something even more area specific than just France.
Crème de Cassis
While the French have been producing and drinking Crème de Cassis for centuries, our history with the blackcurrant liqueur dates back a decade.
We started buying the fruity liqueur in Philadelphia after friends gave us a a taste from their precious bottle. Our infatuation manifested and eventually took us to the Cassissium, an immersive Cassis museum in Nuits-Saint-Georges.
More recently, we bought a bottle of Leon Gonay’s Crème de Cassis for this and other recipes. Not only was it produced in Dijon in Burgundy, but the bottle was also available at our local market.
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