To finish the Martini section of this cocktail series and to continue the question of is it really a Martini without Gin, I delve into the sordid underbelly of the cocktail world, with fruity sticky bars and women named Chardonnay, I present to you the most hyped pink sexy delight, the Cocktail the BBC and M&S will not name, The Porn Star.
The Porn Star Martini, if you can really call it such a thing was created by Douglas Ankrah, owner of the LAB bar in London just before the turn of the millennium, 1999, the year The Matrix was released and we still understood it and Ricky Martin irritated us all with "Livin' La Vida Loca". You get the gist of the time that one bar made something that in 2017 became the most popular cocktail in the UK.
Now for some general facts about the Porn Star Martini, it comes with a shot of Champagne, which, for the life of me, I will never understand. It is a gimmick and to me a way around the fact that there are quite a few ingredients, one bulky, that becomes an issue to fit it all in a cocktail glass. But a shot glass is incorrect and should be a small flute as pictured and if someone gives you Prosecco in the glass, they are wrong. But they shouldn’t have this and I have found that if you just top the glass up after shaking with good quality Prosecco, it adds to the flavours of the drink and adds some fizz.
If you were at a bar and someone put your drink in front of you then gave you a sidecar shot of some random Prosecco, what would you do, carry two drinks, what if you have ordered for a friend, are you to sip the shot or just down it then drink the rest of the cocktail. If you think about it, you can see this relatively normal process is complete nonsense, Douglas at the time obviously loved the idea, articles embellishing his idea saying that “The two-vessel assemblage has since become the signature presentation for the drink and a symbol of its perceived grandeur”, the people at the time thought of it as two drinks for one, but back then we all wanted more.
So what is in it I hear you cry (quietly in case real cocktail drinkers hear you);
1.5 ounces vanilla vodka, preferably Grey Goose La Vanille
0.5 ounce passion fruit liqueur, preferably Passoã or De Kuyper
2 ounces passion fruit purée
2 ounces chilled Champagne, to be served on the side
Garnish: half of a fresh passion fruit
All the ingredients except the champagne are shaken with ice, strained into a cocktail glass and the champagne is poured in a small flute and put together as pictured. Or do it my way and feel like a real person. The drink is sweet and covers any taste of alcohol, it is better described for the unaffiliated as the big sister to "Sex on the Beach" and one I certainly would not order, but have made at parties.
