Kir Royal

Note Profile

Prepared

About

Kir Royal is a fantasy note named after the cocktail: crème de cassis topped with champagne. It reads as jammy, slightly catty blackcurrant lifted by a dry aldehydic fizz.

Scent Profile

Fruity leads and is the whole point of the note: the dark, tart, jammy cassis a trade glossary places closer to raspberry than strawberry. An aldehydic flash sits over it, sharp and waxy, and is what makes the accord read as bubbles rather than syrup. Boozy weight underneath says liqueur and wine rather than fruit juice. Sulphurous is the catty blackcurrant-bud character that Givaudan names first on its own material, held below the fruit here because the cocktail framing is a sweetened liqueur, not the raw absolute. Green runs through the cassis as crushed leaf. Mineral is the chalky, stony dry base a trade source gives for the champagne side. Sweet_vanillic is the sugar of the crème de cassis. Under those sit a yeasty powdery softness, a tart sour edge, a small animalic trace from the thiols and a faint citrus and floral lift.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Fruity, Fresh & Citrus, Sweet & Gourmand

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Not a raw material. No house sells a captive called Kir Royal and no extract of the drink exists. Wikipedia gives the recipe as nine parts champagne to one part crème de cassis. The note is assembled from two established perfumery elements. The blackcurrant side comes from blackcurrant bud absolute or its synthetic thiols, which Givaudan's own datasheet describes as a duality of sulphurous green and fruity. The champagne side is a constructed effervescence accord, not wine: aldehydes for the sparkle, a yeasty brioche heart, a chalky mineral base.

Usage in Perfumery

An opening accord for celebratory and fruity-floral compositions. It sits where a plain blackcurrant note would sit but adds a dry, sparkling lift, so it can head a composition without the flat sweetness of a berry note alone.