Oh, no – all my clothes have fallen off…

(Stripped Down) Porn Star Martini.

The cocktail classicist can become prone to an arrogant disdain for certain modern populist concoctions and being myself guilty of exactly such a weakness I decided it time to engage in some constructive catharsis around one such drink. A dear friend, while certainly a bon viveur, is no cocktail fanatic but when she does partake is magnetically drawn to that increasingly ubiquitous potion known, not without some eye-rolling, as the Porn Star Martini (only an actual Martini should ever be called a Martini FFS). Created in the early naughties by Douglas Ankrah at The Townhouse bar in London and quite deliberately embracing a trashy aesthetic the PSM – with its characteristic side-shot of prosecco – may very grudgingly be called a modern classic. So when said friend, denied her favourite cocktail by this long dry lockdown, asks a self appointed cocktail expert if he can rustle one up how can he refuse?

Swallowing his pride our hero looks at the prevalent and fringe recipes for the PSM. And despairs. All are trying to cram in vanilla and passion fruit flavour from more than one direction. Vanilla vodka and vanilla syrup, passion fruit juice/nectar/pulp and Passoã liqueur. It all seemed a touch desperate and heavily reliant on decidedly mediocre ingredients. Surely he could strip this back to the core flavours both purifying and simplifying this peculiar drink? Being in possession of some excellent home-made passion fruit syrup and being well acquainted with flavouring spirits, a more zenny spec came gradually into creation. Shall I share it with you? OK then:

Make some passion fruit  syrup. You can follow the link if you like but the gist of it is to buy some frozen passion fruit (maracujá in Portuguese) pulp from a South American/Mexican store warm it up and mix with an equal weight of sugar. Passion fruit flavour and sweetener – check. Make some delicious vanilla vodka. Take a vanilla pod. Split it down the middle with a sharp knife and unfold it. Put it in a bottle of vodka for about five days, agitating daily. Pass through a coffee filter and rebottle. Vanilla flavour – check. No need for iffy vanilla flavoured vodkas, dodgy liqueurs and double doses of flavourings. And that shot of prosecco on the side? Let’s upgrade that to cava. The proportions of our stripped down Porn Star should be self-evident (I’m trying hard to hold back the tourette’s here…) as those of a classic Daiquiri. Garnish? In my opinion the shot of cava is the garnish but in the unlikely event that you have a passion fruit lying around – as I did – then by all means go for it.

Did my friend enjoy this version? Well, she said it was the best one she’d had. Truth or generosity? The only way to find out is to try it yourself:

Exotic Actress.

(Cocktail Formerly Known as Porn Star Martini.)

2oz / 60ml home-made vanilla vodka* (see text).

1oz / 30ml fresh lime juice.

0.75oz / 22ml home-made passion fruit syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled Champagne coupé.

Serve with a shot glass containing 1.5-2oz (45-60ml) of chilled brut cava.

Toast Paula Jääskeläinen – our Covid lockdown support bubble PSM fan.

*I used Finlandia as a base to further ingratiate myself to my Finnish test subject but any neutral 40% vodka is fine.