Recent years have seen the rise of the espresso martini, dirty Shirley, Negroni sbagliato, Hugo spritz and more.
But the next “it” cocktail might be one with a rather raunchy name: the porn star martini.
What is a porn star martini?
“The porn star martini is a passion fruit-flavored cocktail made with vanilla vodka, passion fruit liqueur, passion fruit juice and lime juice, accompanied by a chilled shot of prosecco,” Fabio Raffaelli, a bartender and North America brand ambassador for Martini & Rossi, said in an email.
The drink is not a true martini but rather one of the many sweet cocktails that have come to include the word “martini” in its name, perhaps due to the glassware it’s typically served in. Many bartenders use passion fruit purée or syrup instead of juice and add vanilla syrup.
“A good porn star martini starts with two ripe, fresh passion fruits cut in half,” said Simon Difford, a spirits industry writer and creator of Difford’s Guide. “Put one half aside to float as a garnish boat on the finished cocktail and scoop the pulp and seeds from the other three halves into a cocktail shaker.”
To this, he advised adding 2 ounces of vanilla-flavored vodka, half an ounce of passion fruit liqueur such as Passoã, half an ounce of vanilla syrup such as Monin, and half an ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice.
“Add ice, shake, and strain into a chilled martini glass,” Difford said in an email. “Serve with a decadent shot of chilled Champagne on the side.”
Where did it come from?
“The porn star martini was created in 2002 by Douglas Ankrah, a regarded well-known London bartender, while working at the Townhouse bar in Knightsbridge,” Difford said. “Douglas is best known for founding London’s Lab bar, for many years one of London’s preeminent bars. The porn star martini was a staple at Lab, and that helped drive its notoriety.”
Ankrah, who died in 2021, said in a 2017 interview that the drink was inspired by a trip he took to Cape Town, South Africa, where he visited a gentlemen’s club called Mavericks Revue Bar. At the time, he was writing his mixology book, “Cocktails: Shaken and Stirred.”
“Bars, when done properly, should be environments where one can be bold, sexy and playful,” he said. “Being a huge part of the bar scene, I wanted to create a drink that personifies those attributes; bold, sexy and playful.”
In some ways, the porn star martini was an inevitable phenomenon.
“The cocktail renaissance started in London around 1995 and was driven by easy-drinking fruity cocktails served in V-shaped martini-style glasses, so they all had ‘martini’ in their name,” Difford explained. “There was a touch of James Bond’s style in ordering one of these vodka-based neo-martinis, but instead of being a spirit-forward martini, these cocktails were fruity, quaffable, crushable even.”
He noted that watermelon martinis were among the most popular of the “fresh fruit martinis” of this era. The appletini also comes to mind.
“As just about every other fruit had been martini’d, it was only a matter of time before someone used fresh passion fruit in a ‘martini,’” Difford added.
What’s the deal with the name?
Ankrah originally called his passion fruit cocktail the maverick martini after the Cape Town club, but he quickly changed the name to the raunchier one we know today. Over the years, he maintained that it wasn’t meant to be overly vulgar.
“The drink is very evocative and tantalizing,” Ankrah said in the same 2017 interview. “I called it porn star because I thought it was something that a porn star would drink, there’s nothing sexual there.”
He added that the drink is “stylish and confident.” Difford, however, believes there might’ve been a more practical motive behind the name.
“Sex sells, and lurid cocktail names tend to help drive popularity,” he said, pointing to the sex on the beach, screaming orgasm and the lesser-known slow comfortable screw between the sheets. “The maverick martini didn’t sell, but porn star martinis flew out.”
As for the martini part of the name, Difford believes that nomenclature should be reserved for “spirituous gin-laced cocktails aromatized with vermouth.” The porn star martini offers a sweeter, easier alternative to the more alcohol-forward classic. And there’s no denying the name is a conversation starter.
“The name of the porn star martini is a quirky way to make customers have fun ordering or bring a smile to their faces,” Brian Fernandez, a bartender at Maizano in Costa Mesa, California, said in an email. “The cocktail has a similar effect that an ‘adios, motherfucker’ has ― people just enjoy saying it.”
Not everyone likes the name, however. In 2019, the British retailer Marks & Spencer renamed its ready-to-drink porn star martini cocktail products to “passion star martini” following a complaint that the original branding violated trade group rules about linking alcohol to “sexual activity or sexual success.”
The concern doesn’t seem terribly widespread, at least not outside the U.K.
“There is so much said these days on TV, most don’t blink an eye when saying porn star unless you are, of course, in an area such as myself in the Bible Belt,” said Nichole Roberts, a bartender at El Mero Taco in Memphis, Tennessee. “Bars are getting more creative with cocktail names, and they don’t always have anything to do at all with what’s in the drink.”
Why is it getting popular?
“Since it hit the London cocktail scene in the early noughties, the porn star martini has enjoyed waves of popularity. But over the last decade, it has become a global phenomenon,” Difford said, noting that the porn star martini has been the most-viewed recipe on his website every year for the past nine years.
“On my visit to Europe last year, porn star martinis were practically on every cocktail menu, and now it’s definitely catching on here in the U.S. ― just like how the espresso martini made its comeback,” added Adam Delaney, a cocktail and bar consultant and beverage director at John Sparr Tavern in Glendale, California.
He believes it’s fitting that this early aughts London invention is having a moment at a time when fashion and music from that period are back in the zeitgeist as well.
“At the most basic level, I think consumers are intrigued by the sensual name of the serve,” Raffaelli said. “The ingredients are also popular, so new porn star martini drinkers are more likely to give it a try. The presentation is pretty, too!”
Indeed, it’s hard to go wrong with passion fruit and vanilla, and the porn star martini feels like a sophisticated and fun step up from the basic vodka cranberry.
“The way it is served with a small pour of Champagne on the side feels like something special and different from your typical cocktail,” Roberts said. “It’s not overly complicated and very versatile to make despite what your bar may carry. I personally think if more knew of it, we could have more orders for a porn star martini over the usual lemon drop for those who stick to simple and what they know.”
There’s also a sense of cultural fusion with the Latin American passion fruit ingredient and U.K. origin story ― a connection that Fernandez would like to see more people explore as they experiment with the cocktail. He’s also a big fan of the look of the drink.
“What makes it so appealing is the color,” Fernandez said. “The cocktail always pops and is aesthetically pleasing. The espresso martini has set the standard of an eye-catching, contagious cocktail, and I believe the porn star martini has that very same energy.”
The espresso martini comparisons aren’t surprising given both have roots in the London cocktail scene and rose to prominence in the U.K. before spreading in the U.S. and beyond.
“Both will eventually go the same way as the cosmopolitan,” Difford predicted. “There will always be people wanting to drink them, but the crowd will have moved onto the next cocktail ― a gin basil smash perhaps.”