A few pints and then a kebab…

I had a vaguely strange but thoroughly enjoyable experience last Friday evening.

A new bar has just opened in the largest town nearest to us here – ‘La Fontaine’ in Pouance.

English-owned, it was rumoured to sell draught bitter, so after the day’s work was over, the two English guys who are doing the various major renovation jobs on the house, their wives, Mrs Shark and myself whipped over to see if those rumours were true.

Sure enough, amongst the Carling, Fosters and Leffe pumps was something a bit like this:

 

 

It was indeed a Boddingtons pump which dispensed foaming pints (yes, pints) of Boddingtons Bitter.

Now, I didn’t come to France to be a Marmite-craving, mix with the Brits only, don’t make an effort to integrate, ex-pat, but that evening, sitting in the square of a sleepy French town, with the sun beating down (it was about 28 degrees) drinking English bitter, was a great experience.

Indeed, a minute’s walk from the square, down a sidestreet, was a kebeb house…so that was tea sorted.

A few pints and then a kebab…

…heaven…

Sunny and Kir

There are some great summer time drinks, with my favourites amongst them being – in no particular order:

• Ice-cold lager-type beer (biere blonde)
• Chilled rose
• Pimms and lemonade
• Mojito
• Amaretto and orange juice over crushed ice
• Pastis

However, since moving to France, another drink has entered this pantheon – kir.

Now, I’ve been aware of kir for quite a few years now, but I’ve only recently started to really get into it as a summer aperitif.

But – as I’ve recently discovered – there’s more to kir than white wine and a dash of cassis.

Yes, I’ve known about Kir Petillant (cassis and sparkling white) and Kir Royal (cassis and champagne) for a while, but what about Kir Breton?

That’s cassis and cider!

Here are a few more variations – courtesy of Wikipedia:

• Communard/Cardinal – made with red wine instead of white
• Kir Imperial – made with raspberry liqueur instead of cassis, and Champagne
• Cidre Royal – made with cider instead of wine, with a measure of calvados added.
• Hibiscus Royal – made with sparkling wine, peach liqueur, raspberry liqueur, and an edible hibiscus flower. Also found with sparkling wine and pear schnapps.
• Kir Peche – made with peach liqueur.
• Pamplemousse – made with red grapefruit liqueur and sparkling white wine, which gives a slightly tart alternative.
• Tarantino – made with lager or light ale (“kir-beer”).
• the Pink Russian – made with milk instead of wine.

It’s also a remarkably economical drink.

With cheap sparkling wine available at just over a euro a bottle and cassis about €5 a bottle, a Kir Petillant costs around 30 centimes to make a large glass, which makes it as cheap as buying a bottle of biere blonde – and that’s cheap enough.

OK, the cheap sparkling is pretty manky on its own, but a splash of fruit liqueur makes it perfectly drinkable and also ups the alcohol content from a measly 10.5%, in the case of Comte de Talmon vin mousseux.

You don’t even need much cassis – a mix of 6 parts wine to 1 part cassis is perfectly OK and it can even be a higher ratio without detriment to the taste.

Just make sure the wine is very well-chilled.

Then you will be too.

Cheers!