Born a star: the juicy history of the passion fruit martini
To many people, the expert combination of vanilla vodka, passion fruit puree, Passoã and champagne serves as a syrupy promise of a good night ahead.To me, however, even a whiff of a pornstar martini takes me right back to my waitressing days in the Midlands, and to sticky hands and broken glass after I dropped a tray of four of the damned things.I don’t need a drinks marketing report to tell me it was the most popular cocktail in 2018; I lived it.The Guardian’s journalism is independent.We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.
Learn more.The pornstar martini feels like a seedy, hedonistic concoction dreamed up in the 1980s by way of Miami’s South Beach, but it was in fact devised in London, by legendary Ghanaian mixologist Douglas Ankrah, who honed his skills at the Hard Rock Cafe before setting up the fabled London Academy of Bartending, or Lab bar, in 1996 (this later led to the launch of Lab Bar on Old Compton Street and later Townhouse in Knightsbridge).Ankrah invented the pornstar martini in 2003, although it was originally called the maverick martini, after a favourite gentleman’s club in Cape Town.His explanation for how he came up with the idea drips with the understatement of a true icon: “I created [it] in 15 minutes or less,”, he once recalled.“Like how Mick and Keith wrote (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction in 10 minutes.
” Brilliant!There are myriad rumours as to how the drink got its original name, but Ankrah once divulged in an interview with The Buyer that it was simply his interpretation of what he thought a porn star might like to drink,Give “pornstar martini” a search in your preferred search engine, however, and you’re unlikely to be presented with any of the supermarket offerings; in fact, I can’t be held responsible for what you will come across,These days, however, the drink goes by the rather coyer name “passion fruit martini”,I grumbled a month or so ago about this change of name (if you’re old enough to drink, you’re probably old enough to know what a porn star is, after all) and asked what the reason might be,Turns out, I should have popped my query in the search bar of this very website: in 2019, Marks & Spencer had to rename its bestselling pre-batch cocktail following the upholding of a complaint by the Portman Group, the UK’s alcohol watchdog.
The complaint claimed an association between alcohol and sexual activity or sexual success, a breach of section 3,2d of its code of practice,Fair enough: the association of intoxication with sexual success is a sticky one, let alone a realistic one (am I right, ladies?), but it feels a bit of a shame to erase the well-meaning work of Ankrah, as well as the oldest industry in the world,All Shook Up Passion Fruit Martini £1,50 (250ml) Tesco, 3.
4%.The sales pitch says this is perfect for “the ’gram”, but it needs some extra vodka to make it stronger.Funkin Nitro Cocktails Passion Fruit Martini £2.25 (200ml) Sainsbury’s, 5%.Nitro bubbles give this a velvety effervescence, while Funkin’s fruit purees are an industry staple for a reason.
Moth Passionfruit Martini £4 (125ml) Waitrose, 14.9%.Anything Moth does is tasty, and this has a far more appropriate ABV than two above.Black Lines Passion Fruit Martini £22 (500ml) Black Lines, 14%.Always reliable, you need only shake this pre-batch with ice and strain into a glass.
Louis Vuitton says UK customer data stolen in cyber-attack
Louis Vuitton has said the data of some UK customers has been stolen, as it became the latest retailer targeted by cyber hackers.The retailer, the leading brand of the French luxury group LVMH, said an unauthorised third party had accessed its UK operation’s systems and obtained information such as names, contact details and purchase history.The brand, which last week said its Korean operation had suffered a similar cyber-attack, told customers that no financial data such as bank details had been compromised.“While we have no evidence that your data has been misused to date, phishing attempts, fraud attempts, or unauthorised use of your information may occur,” the email said.The company said it had notified the relevant authorities, including the Information Commissioner’s Office
The CEO who never was: how Linda Yaccarino was set up to fail at Elon Musk’s X
In May 2023, when Linda Yaccarino, an NBC advertising executive, joined what was then still known as Twitter, she was given a tall order: repair the company’s relationship with advertisers after a chaotic year of being owned by Elon Musk. But just weeks after she became CEO, Musk posted an antisemitic tweet that drove away major brands such as Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate and Warner Bros Discovery to pause their advertising on the platform. Musk delivered an apology for the tweet later at a conference – which he called the worst post he’s ever done – but it came with a message to advertisers, specifically the Disney CEO Bob Iger: “Go fuck yourselves.” Yaccarino was in the audience of the conference.“I don’t want them to advertise,” he said
AI-generated child sexual abuse videos surging online, watchdog says
The number of videos online of child sexual abuse generated by artificial intelligence has surged as paedophiles have pounced on developments in the technology.The Internet Watch Foundation said AI videos of abuse had “crossed the threshold” of being near-indistinguishable from “real imagery” and had sharply increased in prevalence online this year.In the first six months of 2025, the UK-based internet safety watchdog verified 1,286 AI-made videos with child sexual abuse material (CSAM) that broke the law, compared with two in the same period last year.The IWF said just over 1,000 of the videos featured category A abuse, the classification for the most severe type of material.The organisation said the multibillion-dollar investment spree in AI was producing widely available video-generation models that were being manipulated by paedophiles
Children limiting own smartphone use to manage mental health, survey finds
Children are increasingly taking breaks from their smartphones to better manage their mental health, personal safety and concentration spans, research has revealed.They are reacting to growing concerns that spending too much time online can be harmful by taking control of their own social media and smartphone use rather than relying on parents to enforce limits, according to experts.The number of 12- to 15-year-olds who take breaks from smartphones, computers and iPads rose by 18% to 40% since 2022, according to the audience research company GWI, drawing on a survey of 20,000 young people and their parents across 18 countries.Prof Sonia Livingstone, the director of the LSE’s Digital Futures for Children centre, said these findings were echoed in soon to be published research, which has found that children and young people are trying various options to manage how their online lives affect their wellbeing, including taking a break from social media, distracting themselves from negativity online, seeking more positive experiences on the internet and in some cases quitting social media altogether.Livingstone said: “Children have got the message – from their parents, the media, their own experiences – that too much social media isn’t always good for them
UK government’s deal with Google ‘dangerously naive’, say campaigners
Google has agreed a sweeping deal with the UK government to provide free technology to the public sector from the NHS to local councils– a move campaigners have called “dangerously naive”.The US company will be asked to “upskill” tens of thousands of civil servants in technology, including in using artificial intelligence, as part of an agreement that will not require the government to pay. It is considered in Whitehall to be giving Google “a foot in the door” as the digitisation of public services accelerates.However, the agreement prompted concerns about the precariousness of UK public data potentially being held on US servers amid the unpredictable leadership of Donald Trump.The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said Google Cloud, which provides databases, machine learning and computing power, had “agreed to work with the UK government in helping public services use advanced tech to shake off decades old ‘ball and chain’ legacy contracts which leave essential services vulnerable to cyber-attack”
Linda Yaccarino stepping down as CEO of Elon Musk’s X
The CEO of X, Elon Musk’s social network, announced on Wednesday she would resign.“After two incredible years, I’ve decided to step down as CEO of 𝕏,” Linda Yaccarino wrote.Musk replied to her tweet: “Thank you for your contributions.”The outgoing CEO said, “When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company. I’m immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App
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