Crème de cassis
The liqueur of Dijon, without which there is no kir — white wine with a splash of cassis, the aperitif popularised by Félix Kir, Dijon's post-war mayor, who served it at receptions. Crème here means not cream but a high sugar content and thick, syrupy body. The blackcurrants macerate two weeks in wine and spirit, and the sugar goes in only after straining, as a cold syrup — boiled with the fruit it would taste of jam, not fresh currants.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Macerating the fruit 20160 min
- Straining 20 min
- Syrup 20 min
- Bottling 10 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneClean and lightly crush the currants
Strip the currants from their stalks, wash and dry, then crush lightly with a pestle in a large jar. Only enough to split the skins — the colour and aroma sit mainly in the skins.
Ingredients: 1000 g blackcurrants · 300 ml red wine · 500 ml vodka 40%
Just split the skins — that is where the colour is.Cover with wine and spirit
Pour over the wine and vodka so they cover the fruit completely. The wine gives depth and tannin, the vodka draws out aroma and preserves. Fruit standing above the liquid oxidises and browns.
Ingredients: 1000 g blackcurrants · 300 ml red wine · 500 ml vodka 40%
Macerate two weeks
Seal the jar and leave somewhere cool and dark for 14 days, shaking it every two or three. The liquid turns black-purple and opaque. Do not stretch it much longer — with long maceration the seeds can give the liqueur a bitter note.
Ingredients: 1000 g blackcurrants · 300 ml red wine · 500 ml vodka 40%
Strain through muslin, squeezing the fruit
Pour the jar through a sieve lined with muslin and squeeze the fruit hard in the cloth. The most aromatic, thickest juice stays in the fruit — without squeezing much of the liqueur stays in the pulp.
Ingredients: 1000 g blackcurrants · 300 ml red wine · 500 ml vodka 40%
Squeezed in muslin — the best juice is in the fruit.Make the syrup and cool it fully
Boil the sugar with the water for 2 minutes until clear and cool to room temperature — in a bowl of cold water this takes about 15 minutes. Hot syrup would evaporate some of the alcohol and dull the fresh fruit aroma.
Ingredients: 600 g sugar · 200 ml water
Combine syrup and infusion
Pour the cold syrup into the blackcurrant infusion gradually, stirring and tasting. Crème de cassis should be thick, sweet and clearly sour at once. You may use less syrup than planned — taste decides.
Ingredients: 600 g sugar · 200 ml water
Filter and bottle
Filter the liqueur once more through fine muslin or a coffee filter and pour into sterilised bottles. Cork tightly. A sediment after some weeks is natural.
Ingredients: 1000 g blackcurrants · 300 ml red wine · 500 ml vodka 40%
A second filtering — then into bottles.Rest a month before drinking
Leave the bottles at least a month. Fresh liqueur tastes sharply of alcohol; after a month the flavours knit and the currant deepens. Serve as kir — 1 part cassis to 5 parts cold white wine.
Ingredients: 1000 g blackcurrants · 300 ml red wine · 500 ml vodka 40%
Before you start
Kir and kir royal
Kir is white wine (classically bourgogne aligoté) with a splash of crème de cassis — the colour should be pink-purple, not dark. Kir royal is the same with champagne. Cassis also goes into ice cream, sorbets and sauces for game.
Vodka, not 95% spirit
Pure spirit extracts too much, too fast, including bitterness from the seeds. Neutral 40% vodka with wine gives a gentle, full extraction. If you only have 95% spirit, dilute it to about 40%: 210 ml of spirit and 290 ml of water in place of the 500 ml of vodka.
Two years in the bottle
Crème de cassis keeps two years somewhere dark, but once opened it loses aroma within months — an open bottle is best kept in the fridge. The squeezed fruit can go into jam.