First commercially produced in 1841, the black currant liqueur, cassis, is most generally recognized for its function within the well-known Nineteenth-century French aperitif cocktail, the Kir—a mixture of white wine and cassis initially referred to as vin blanc cassis—and its glowing sibling, the Kir Royale. However the reputation of those two drinks, by most accounts, may need accomplished extra to harm the liqueur’s picture than assist it.
The Kir was intentionally promoted in France by Canon Félix Kir, the deputy mayor of Dijon, as a way to market inferior vintages of aligoté wine from his house area of Burgundy—additionally the ancestral house of cassis. “Mayor Kir was attempting to unload two issues no person needed—acidic wine and a candy liqueur,” explains wine author Richard Nalley, including that the liqueur’s “sweet-sour style” tremendously appealed to the European palate, and earlier than lengthy, the American one too.
As cassis’s reputation grew within the U.S. and producers started making home black currant liqueurs, catastrophe struck: Within the early twentieth century, black currants, recognized to hold a illness referred to as white pine blister rust, got here to be thought-about such a risk to the nation’s timber crops that they have been outlawed for greater than half a century. Producers turned to low cost, synthetic sweeteners in lieu of recent fruit, damaging the spirit’s repute within the course of.
However the inflow of high quality cassis within the U.S. lately has introduced the liqueur out of obscurity and helped it discover its method again onto drinks lists nationwide. When made with actual currants, Invoice Norris of 400 Rabbits notes, cassis possesses an “inherent steadiness from the pure tart and bitter flavors” that makes it a dependable modifier for cocktails each traditional and authentic. Bartender Kathleen Hawkins, for instance, modernizes the Kir Royale in her Plum Royale, which balances the liqueur with an acidic home made shrub. Portland’s Lydia McLuen, in the meantime, updates the New York Bitter in her Violet Hour, which could be made with haksap liqueur or cassis.
Others look towards newer historical past, bringing maligned drinks from the twentieth century again into the limelight. Norris’s El Diablo Pepino, a twist on the tequila-based El Diablo cocktail, makes use of cucumber so as to add an earthy freshness to the fruit-forward drink. Bobby Heugel additionally reimagines a traditional—the Tequila Dawn—however subs out a few of the grenadine in favor of cassis, and loses the orange juice altogether in a nod to the unique juice-free cocktail that gained reputation as a border beverage within the early twentieth century.
“Cassis was doubtless used [in the original Tequila Sunrise], because it was in lots of cocktails at time,” explains Huegel. “The tart parts of the cassis berries produce a really balanced liqueur that doesn’t overly sweeten drinks as so many different liqueurs do.”
William Elliott of Maison Premiere, who makes use of the liqueur in a Martini variation, agrees. In lots of cocktails, he says, cassis’s acidity and notes of spice typically shine when blended with absinthe: “This actually performs into a cool, natural complexity,” he says. These natural flavors come collectively, too, when blended with different liqueurs, like Suze, in David Lebovitz’s Suze in Paradise.
A much less standard take is François Vera’s Le Papillon, an ambrosial amalgam of citrus, cassis and singani, served at LA’s Parisian-style Pour Vous. And whereas one won’t suppose to pair the Bolivian spirit with one made well-known in Burgundy, the inclusion of muddled grapes alongside the grape brandy suggests a nod to the unique wine-based Kir, a genial gesture from one French establishment to a different.
