The Cariel Vanilla
Maverick Martini – Porn Star Martini
SINFULLY DELICIOUS
The Cariel Vanilla
Maverick Martini
Back on the early 2000’s London’s Mixology
Revolution was taking hold. Douglas Ankrah,
owner and Head Bartender of The Townhouse
and LAB was a pioneer
In The Townhouse he had developed an
idea for a drink based on Passionfruit and
the newly available Cariel Vanilla Vodka
Douglas was commuting between London &
Capetown to write his book “Shaken & Stirred”
and the drink was perfected there and named
after a racy bar the team were frequenting after
hours called “Maverick’s”
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The Cariel Vanilla
Maverick Martini – Porn Star Martini Recipe*
Glassware:
•2 Martini glasses, preferably frozen
•2 tall shotglasses for the
champagne on the side
Ingredients:
•3 oz (90ml) Cariel Vanilla Vodka
•1 tablespoon Passoã (passionfruit
liqueur)
•Flesh and seeds of 4 fresh
passionfruit
•5 teaspoons vanilla sugar
•4 oz (120ml) champagne
•1 Passionfruit, cut in half
•Hard ice cubes
The Method:
Shake all the ingredients (except
the champagne, passionfruit halves
and 1 teaspoon of the vanilla
sugar) in a cocktail shaker and
strain into the Martini glasses.
Separately, pour out 2 glasses of
champagne, then dust the
passionfruit halves with the
remaining sugar.
Dunk the passionfruit in the martini
glasses, with spoons: the idea is to
fish out the fruit and eat it with the
spoon, drink the champagne and
enjoy the cocktail at leisure
*reproduced from Douglas Ankrah’s “Shaken & Stirred”
published 2004 by Kyle Cathie Ltd. Available on Amazon.com
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The Cariel Vanilla Pornstar Martini: The Full Story
Way back in 2003, London was the epicentre of the
new mixology revolution.
Seemingly forgotten techniques and exotic tastes
were reborn in a flurry of spirits excellence.
Fortune and fame beckoned for some of these
audacious innovators.
The quality spirits in vogue in these special times
were to assume almost legendary status as were
the men (and women) who fashioned bibulous fancy
from them.
One such man was Douglas Ankrah.
Douglas by this time was a already paragon of cocktail
excellence as head bartender and proprietor of The
Townhouse at 31, Beauchamp Square.
Douglas also owned the famous LAB Bar which had an
offshoot in Cape Town, South Africa and he was
commuting between the two in this period to find thinking
space for the book he was writing (now a best seller:
“Shaken & Stirred”).
Prominent in Douglas’ thoughts at this time was an especially
delicious drink he had started developing in the Townhouse.
It was constructed around the newly established Cariel Vanilla
Vodka introduced to London by its Swedish creator Peter
Carlson.
At LAB Cape Town he experimented with versions of this drink.
At this time Douglas and his colleagues (which included Jamie
Terrell) were frequenting a rather racy Cape Town
establishment by the name of ‘Maverick’s’ and so they came
to refer to this new drink as the “Maverick Martini”.
During these creative sessions a colleague remarked that is
was not so much a “Maverick” but a “Pornstar”.
British English vernacular at this time was using “Rockstar”
and “Pornstar” interchangeably to describe something which
these days we might describe as “awesome”.
Like an Awesome Martini. A Pornstar Martini.
A star was born.
In Cape Town it was refined and perfected. It was served
with a shot of chilled champagne on the side. And reexported back to London, all grown up. It was the ultimate in
luxury. Or conspicuous consumption.
Suddenly The Pornstar was THE drink, popping up in various
incarnations in the best places. Being drunk by THE in-crowd.
The bartender community that received this sensational new
drink in London embraced it as a beacon for this cocktail
Renaissance.
And as these young men and women fuelled a mixological
diaspora they took it in various glorious incarnations to the
ends of the earth. Today you can ask for and receive a
Pornstar in the most salubrious and unlikely of places around
the world.
And you can sit there happy in the knowledge that you
aren’t just having a drink.
You are communing with a legend.
SINFULLY DELICIOUS