One defines sharp, the other epitomizes sweet, and somewhere along the way they’ve both turned out to be very good for you, too. Dijon’s proudest exports are never far from my kitchen cupboards: mustard—the world’s very best, some argue; and cassis, the cornerstone of the elegant and refreshing drink called kir.

We’ll talk mustard another time. Today, we focus on the work of the liqueuristes, the makers of the glorious black-currant liqueur known as crí¨me de cassis—more accurately, crí¨me de cassis de Dijon. Nearly 16 million litres is the annual production figure, and while quite a bit is exported, the larger part of that production is consumed in France.

In British Columbia we are offered no fewer than three different crí¨mes de cassis, at varying prices, in varying-size bottles, and with varying alcohol levels. Surely the demand for tall, cool flutes of kir keeps them at the requisite quota levels in the liquor-board system.

There is no nicer festive summertime drink than the simple kir: one ounce crí¨me de cassis, four ounces chilled dry white wine (Aligoté, to be absolutely de rigueur). Mix and serve. Move a touch up-neighbourhood for the kir royale—same proportions, except this time the white is Champagne. Less familiar here would be the kir communard; again, same proportions, but now the wine is red.

Then take a virtual stroll through the cyber-bar for another scroll of recipes, nearly a hundred, ranging widely in style. For the bucolic, try a Smile: one ounce each vodka, light rum, and crí¨me de cassis, five ounces each orange juice and double-strength lemonade, one ounce grenadine, a dollop of whipped cream. Mix everything but the grenadine and cream in a shaker and blend well; pour half the grenadine into the bottom of two glasses, fill with liquid, add whipped cream to each, and spread out to the rim of the glass. You’re probably going to need a straw. More mysterious is the Baltic Murder Mystery: one ounce each crí¨me de cassis and vodka in a glass, then filled with 7UP. Or consider the appropriately named White Mess: one part each white rum, crí¨me de cassis, root-beer schnapps, Malibu rum, and heavy cream, shaken and strained into a glass. The teeth are shuddering”¦

I won’t even venture into the uncharted territories of the Mojito Diablo or the Ballet Russe Cocktail, the Snake Bite Bites Back or the Naked Pretzel, the Hard Case or the Fruity Fuck—leave you something to explore on your own.

The three crí¨mes de cassis de Dijon listed in B.C. are Lejay-Lagoute ($21.99 for 500 millilitres, 20 percent alcohol) and the regular-sized L’Héritier-Guyot ($24.99, 16 percent) and Gabriel Boudier ($38.99, 20 percent). We found our favourites fast, predicated on price and flavour, but all three are excellent.

The Lejay-Lagoute is smoky on the nose with dark herb aromas, very rich, and a touch “dry”, which comes as a surprise. Hearty and full, it would be excellent for desserts as well as drinks, and there are some intriguing cooking applications (pork dishes, glazes”¦).

The L’Héritier-Guyot has a shorter nose and slighter finish; it carries four parts less alcohol and also costs the least of the three. A perfect starter cassis, it will fuel a long afternoon of kirs nicely. If money’s no object, the Gabriel Boudier would be the one: intense, heavy, syrupy, gloriously rich and decadent. But nearly $40 is stretching the point. Nonetheless, that’s the one that won on overall points for best flavour. The Lejay-Lagoute won as best buy.

Any fruit-based dessert would welcome a splash of cassis; so would rich real-ice-cream concoctions. Pork tenderloin with a pomegranate sauce, liberally laced with cassis and slivered toasted almonds; endless cakes; melon or pink grapefruit with a splash on top—your own imagination sets the boundaries.

The most detailed notes came from the house of L’Héritier-Guyot, an important producer in Burgundy and one of the oldest and biggest. Since the mid 1800s, L’Héritier-Guyot has farmed some 16 hectares of cassis orchards bordering on the fabled Vougeot vineyards.

According to the producer, the cassis berries are carefully crushed to avoid breaking the seeds, which impart bitterness, then macerated in eaux de vie to stop oxidation, and then begins the colour- and aroma-extraction process, which lasts two months, maybe longer. The ideal proportion is 12.5 litres of 100-proof alcohol from 100 kilograms of fruit.

After the infusion, the liquid comes off the skins and seeds and is sweetened with beet sugar at a minimum of 400 grams per litre. Let it rest in lined vats a few days and it’s ready to delight the palate.

Producers take pride in the fact cassis is amazingly pure and also lays claim to the title of being the most healthful liqueur. Black currants contain half a gram of vitamin C per hundred grams of fruit, which is seven times that found in oranges. Much of this vitamin C remains in the finished liqueur for over a year.

If you rummage through the stacks at the Sorbonne you can still find manuscripts like Les Propriétés Admirables du Cassis, which lists its attributes as an ameliorative for venomous bites, intestinal ailments, rheumatism, migraine headaches, and chilblains.

But it remains the kir, that cocktail favourite, that drives the cassis machine. In its hometown, they call it vin blanc cassis, but it was named for Canon Félix Kir, mayor of Dijon, priest, and hero of the French resistance, and the immortalization of his name in a spirited drink did not take place until the 1970s.

It’s a festive, friendly, stylish drink and as soon as we get rid of a few more of those clouds, it’ll be time to start sipping it in the sunshine, on the deck.

Oh, and if you have a nice little sun-and-shade space around that deck, you might like to plant a few Crí¨me de Cassis hollyhocks as a border plant. It’s a fine first-year-flowering perennial with a juicy black-currant colour, with flowers from June to September and nearly two metres tall.