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Kir
white wine cocktail
France’s most popular cocktail, combining Crème de cassis and white wine, was originally known as a blanc-cassis, but was renamed after Félix Kir (1876–1968), a canon of the Church who won the Legion d’Honneur for his work with the Resistance and who was elected mayor of Dijon in 1946.
He was quite a character: once when a Communist deputy asked him how could he believe in God if he never saw him, Mayor Kir replied: ‘You’ve never seen my ass, either, but it exists!’
The original cassis and wine cocktail was made with red wine, but the Nazis had made off with all the red Burgundy so Mayor Kir made a point of serving it with white Bourgogne Aligoté wine at receptions (to promote both it and cassis) especially whenever he twinned Dijon with another city and fêted visitors.
Image by Arnaud 25