Monthly Mixed Drink: The Kir

Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth! I have been working on securing a new job and winding down things at my old job to prepare for my departure and that has taken up quite a bit of my blogging time, but now I am back. I've missed you.

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Once upon a time I was at a little hipster coffee house with Donnie seeing a show and they had a very short specialty mixed drink menu. I am a sucker for house specialty mixed drinks because sometimes they are the best part of a meal. My favorite so far has been the grapefruit and jalapeno martini, aptly named Cool Heat, that I had with Laura at Watershed. I salivate over memories of it. Anyway, this night I had a drink that contained white wine, St Germain, and a couple of other minor ingredients. It was delicious and the intrigue of mixed drinks containing wine was born. Being the Francophile and wine lover that I am I chose a classic French mixed drink this time: The Kir.

A Kir is an aperitif, which is an alcoholic drink enjoyed before a meal. I find the idea of an aperitifs and digestifs so romantic and sophisticated that I am considering indulging in them more often. In the United States the social more is that the consumption of alcohol is typically reserved for sporting events, special occasions, and college. In copious amounts; otherwise, not at all. This is probably due in combination to our post-Prohibition era and religious indoctrination, especially in the Bible Belt where I am from. In Europe it is just a part of the meal like appetizers and dessert.

Blackcurrants via Wikimedia Commons.

Aperitifs are served before dinner as a means to stimulate the appetite. They are usually dry and light so they are refreshing without overwhelming one's taste. Champagne and white wine are popular choices. Europe has a very slow-food social mentality about mealtimes and I think that serving an alcoholic drink as the first course is also intended to lighten the atmosphere of the event. The Kir is a popular aperitif and was originally called blanc-cassis, named for its ingredients of blackcurrant liqueur and white wine, but became more commonly known as the Kir in the mid-20th century after Felix Kir. Kir was a French parish priest who joined the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France. He is highly revered for assisting the escape of more than 5,000 prisoners of war from the Nazi prison camp in Longvic, eastern France. Following the war he was elected mayor of Dijon in the Burgundy region. He began to serve the blanc-cassis as his signature drink at engagements, which was necessitated by the red wine shortage following the Nazi confiscation of local Burgundy. Sounds like a cool guy, right?

The Burgundy region of France via Wikimedia Commons.

The ingredients in the drink are creme de cassis and white wine. That's it. It seems pretty straight forward, except there are lots of different types of white wine and they range from very dry (Sauvignon Blanc) to very sweet (Moscato). Since this drink originated in the Burgundy region of France and aperitifs are commonly made using a dry wine, I decided to go with a white Burgundy, specifically Chablis. BUT the grocery store had other plans. I think my local grocery store prides itself on the wine selection because it is very large and visible with tons of signage. It is also seemingly extensive, a visual marketing trick to fool the less connoisseurial wine enthusiast, because there was not a Chablis in the bunch. In my disappointment I ended up going with a cheap Chardonnay, the more common of the Burgundy whites, which in this case was made in California, not France. Womp Womp.

I chose this Creme de Cassis because I thought it looked a little more artisenal that your typical Dekuyper. Are you sensing a disconnect in this pairing? An expensive liqueur and a cheap wine. I'll admit that I can tell very little difference between a cheap wine and a top shelf supermarket wine. They're all good as long as they aren't Turning Leaf.

Luckily, my blackcurrant liqueur was actually made in France using "a traditional French Family Recipe..." What exactly is a French Family Recipe All Caps? Surely the recipe does not belong to the French Family of France? Or is there a standard recipe of this name commonly used in the making of blackcurrant liqueur? I noticed a few places on their website where it seemed a little got lost in translation, so maybe that is what happened on the label as well. At any rate, it compares well with other liqueurs of this type and I liked it.

The label Up Close.

I recently read an article in Mother Earth News about making your own (illegal) fruit liqueurs and I found it actually pretty fascinating. Did you know that a distilled fruit wine is called an eau de vie, which translates to "water of life?" Doesn't that sound enchanting? Maybe I'll revise my goal to make my own beer or wine to make my own distilled fruit liqueur? The cursory instructions included in this article make it seem pretty easy. I do have dreams of one day growing dwarf orchard trees at the back of my property and if I can get Donnie to comply maybe I'll spend my summers making homemade jams and eau de vie. But I digress.

The Kir

1. Pour a small amount of creme de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) into the bottom of a wine glass.

Don't mind the diaper in the background.

2. Top with white wine.

Like so.

3. Enjoy.

The verdict: No wonder one is supposed to use a dry white wine! Blackcurrant liqueur is hella sweet. This article calls creme de cassis "jammy" and that it spot on. Donnie thought this drink was too sweet, but I thought it was refreshing as long as one did not overdo it on the liqueur. And it feels like a festive, celebratory summer drink, like it should be drunk* at picnics or, dare I say, Independence Day gatherings. Undoubtedly my impression of this drink was influenced by my new found knowledge of its history. I drank it for a few days before I tired of it, so I'll probably enjoy it every now and again. 

*My inclination here was to type "to be drank," but then I wasn't sure if that was correct. Lo and behold it was not. Drank is the past tense of Drink and nothing else. The passive infinitive of Drink is to be Drunk. In some dialects (read: my dialect) Drank is commonly used this way, but it is still incorrect. If you are wondering, as I was, what a Southern dialect is officially called by linguists: General Southern matches the borders of southern states that seceded during the Civil War. The fact that the South is still pretty linguistically definitive is interesting to me and the theory is that we tended to not move around much on account of our agricultural heritage. The manufacturing and prospecting histories of other US regions have caused them to become more linguistically homogeneous. My specific region is Southern Coastal. Yes, we do say catty-corner.

**This Wikipedia article on Southern American English kind of blew my mind. It is ALL true and even though I consider myself to be grammatically correct most of the time, I did not know that all these dialectical uses were not correct. Like Dove for past tense of Dive and Drug for the past tense of Drag. I use these but the correct terms are Dived and Dragged. Noted.  

40 Day Shred Challenge and My First Lent

I was not raised religious. The few times that I went to church as a small child were when I was invited by friends and these always felt like fun voyeuristic opportunities. Once I went with a friend to her catholic church and she took the communion rite. This was fascinating to me because being raised in the South, Catholicism is not that prominent here. Later, in my early teen years I did start going to a Baptist church with my dad on the weekends I would visit him, but I always just felt like a visitor. Now my father is very involved in his Baptist church and I sometimes accompany him to services as a courtesy, but I am very uncomfortable there because they hold so many beliefs that my progressive heart finds abhorrent. Now that I am older and have a child of my own I am finding myself yearning for the kind of like-minded community people often find in church, but I am not yet sure where to find this for myself and my family. I really want to expound on this in a later post, but the purpose of bringing it up here is to explain that religious traditions are really foreign to me. Confession: I had no clue what Ash Wednesday was until I was in college and I remember having a serious miscommunication with a customer when I worked in the mall because I didn't know that before it was a capitalist holiday, Black Friday was a religious holiday.  The memory of this conversation is really embarrassing to me now and was likely incredibly offensive for the person to which I was speaking. Can you imagine it?

Me: This will be on sale for Black Friday.
Customer: Black Friday isn't for months...and why would it be on sale?
Me: Noooo, Black Friday is next Friday. You know, the biggest shopping day of the year.
Customer: *blank stare* ... *eyes narrow*... Black Friday is the day Jesus died on the cross. It's the Friday before Easter.
Me: *blushes*

Do you remember when the term "Black Friday" was not a marketing term, but rather was used by those of us in retail to describe how much it sucked to work the day after Thanksgiving? It used to be an industry insider term that has only recently been repackaged by the marketing machine of the holiday season. Now when I think about the origin of the term Black Friday and the fact that it probably now conjures up images of sales papers and endless checkout lines for most people I find the evolution of the term curious...or perhaps even downright sacrilegious. At the very least, it is disrespectful to those who hold these holidays in high esteem. Did you know that Black Friday of the religious variety is also known as Good Friday? I didn't, but now I will make a conscious effort to refer to is as such to distinguish it from the shopping holiday. Not that I say it that often since I don't go to church or participate in religious holidays.

Anyway, My friend Lacey was raised to participate in Lent every year and when I met her (in my early 20s) I didn't know what this was. For others who aren't familiar with this practice, Lent is observed by many Christian denominations and typically comprises the period of time between Mardi Gras, also know as Fat Tuesday, and Easter. This timeline actually can get much more complicated depending on your religious denomination, but for the purposes of this discussion, Ash Wednesday (which happens to be today) is the day after Mardi Gras and the first day of Lent. Practitioners either fast or give up luxuries or vices during this time as penance. Lacey almost always gives up sweets (sometimes dairy) and then rewards her accomplishment with Easter candy, specifically Starburst Jelly Beans. This is a really simplified explanation of Lent so if you are inclined, you can read about it in more detail here and here. I have never participated in Lent, but Lacey inspired me to do so this year.

Let me give you a little more background. I am trying to develop healthier habits in an attempt to lose some weight and feel better about myself. To this end, I recently joined Weight Watchers and discovered (like I didn't already know) that I drink way too much wine. I have a very European attitude about wine. I like it red and I like to drink it when I am cooking, having dinner, and socializing, even if it is just with my husband. I don't think this is a bad habit, but it is definitely not conducive to weight loss. Since beginning Weight Watchers I have blown all my extra weekly points on wine on the weekend and since my week starts on Friday, I have no extra points for the rest of the week, which is very demotivating. I also really struggle with doing any exercise at all and have never earned any activity points despite the fact that I own zillions of workout DVDs. I tell myself that it is okay because I have a 14-month-old and who can workout when they have an active toddler to look after? But to be honest, I could get up a little earlier in the morning, while Lucas is still asleep, and workout. If I weren't so lazy, that is. In order to combat this problem I decided to do the 30 Day Shred by Jillian Michaels starting today.

I had lunch with Lacey yesterday and was telling her about this plan and my struggles and she informed me that I had inadvertently timed the beginning of my 30 Day Shred Challenge with the beginning of Lent and she suggested that I give up wine for Lent and be wine-free during my 30 Day Shred Challenge. This will help me tackle my Weight-Watchers-Points-busting wine habit and allow me to introduce healthier social indulgences after Easter. I thought this sounded like a really excellent idea and I am feeling super motivated.  Lent typically lasts 40 days (not including Sundays) to commemorate Jesus' 40 day fast during which he was tempted by Satan and practitioners feel the observance of the Lenten season brings them closer to God. I am going to do the 30 Day Shred DVD for the full 40 days instead of just 30. While I don't see my participation in this challenge as explicitly bringing me closer to God, I will be giving up a luxury and beginning a healthful practice in order to kick start my healthier lifestyle. This will represent a major accomplishment for me that will improve my life and be incredibly rewarding and I think that is a spiritual act in itself.

And in honor of today being Ash Wednesday, National Geographic posted this interesting linguistic archaeology article detailing the origins of the words "February," "Lent," and "Easter."

Do you participate in Lent? If so, what did you give up this year?