The drink — also affectionately known as the "pornstar martini" — is a staple at cocktail bars across London, New York, and basically every city that doesn't take itself too seriously. It's sweet, it's tart, it comes with a little shot of prosecco on the side, and it's objectively fun. Yet ask around San Francisco and you'll get more blank stares than recommendations.

This is a minor thing, sure. But it points to a broader pattern in SF's food and drink scene: we're incredibly deep in certain lanes (natural wine, craft beer, tiki drinks) and bizarrely thin in others. The market should be filling these gaps. When demand exists and supply doesn't, that's either a licensing headache, a cost problem, or just plain snobbery from bar owners who think passion fruit is beneath them.

Our money is on a little bit of all three. San Francisco's notoriously painful permitting process doesn't exactly encourage experimentation. Opening or even modifying a bar concept here involves enough red tape to wallpaper City Hall. And the city's sky-high commercial rents mean bar owners stick to what already sells rather than expanding their menus for a drink that might only get ordered a few times a night.

Here's the thing: cocktail culture thrives on variety. If a city of 800,000 people — loaded with millennials and Gen Z drinkers who grew up on these drinks — can't reliably produce a passion fruit martini, that's a small but telling sign that our hospitality ecosystem is more constrained than it should be.

So to any bar owner reading this: there's clearly demand. The overhead on passion fruit purée is not breaking your P&L. Give the people what they want. And to everyone else still searching — if you find a great one, let us know. We'll be the first to spread the word.