Inventor of Pornstar Martini cocktail dies aged 51

DOUGLAS ANKRAH the inventor of the world-famous Pornstar Martini cocktail has died aged 51

Douglas Ankrah, the man responsible for inventing the world-famous Pornstar Martini cocktail has passed away suddenly, aged just 51, as reported by his family via social media networks, posting, “The Legendary Douglas Ankrah of #PornstarMartini fame is no more. A mighty oak has indeed fallen. Our family is heartbroken. Our mum is inconsolable. Dee left us without saying goodbye”, but no cause of death has yet been confirmed.

Ghanian-born entrepreneur Ankrah was also the co-founder in 1996 of the legendary London Academy of Bartending at the Atlantic Bar based in Soho, London, which trained a generation of bartenders in the art of mixology AKA “LAB”, which was so successful that it led him to open the Lab cocktail bar in Soho, in 1999, going on to open his second bar, named Townhouse, in trendy Knightsbridge, London.

Although the name of the cocktail has proved controversial throughout the years, Ankrah claimed in an interview that he never named it a “porn star” martini to be deliberately provocative, instead, he said he used the “porn star” name to evoke “a stylish and confident drink that was pure indulgence, sexy, fun and evocative”.

He was also the author of ‘Shaken & Stirred’, an internationally acclaimed cocktail book that has sold over 100,000 copies, and is Amazon’s best-selling cocktails book in the UK.

The Pornstar Martini cocktail was born in 2003, a mix of vanilla vodka, fresh passion fruit, passion fruit liqueur, vanilla syrup, and lime juice, plus a shot of Prosecco, and is one of the most popular cocktails in the world according to Google searches.