MAKE way for the entrepreneur who comes with a bag of props.

“So it was like this,” says J Darius Bikoff, inventor of the Vitaminwater brand. “I was feeling run down one day, standing in my kitchen in New York. I wanted to stave off a cold, and I took one of these . . .”

He pulls a tube of vitamin C tablets from his bag and pops one in his mouth, then he takes out a bottle of water.

“. . . and I opened some mineral water and drank, and I thought, yeah, this is nice, vitamins and water. It got me thinking.”

That was in 1996. Fast forward 11 years and Bikoff, having acted on his hunch, has left his job in metals importing, set up Glaceau, a health drink business, and after a decade of struggle is now sitting on a hot brand loved by the stars and pulling in revenues of $350m a year. Then Coca-Cola comes knocking. It offers him $4.1 billion (£2 billion) to sell his company.

What does he do? He pockets the money while negotiating a deal that keeps him in charge and Coca-Cola at arm’s length while he rolls out the brand round the world. First stop London, where he arrived last week. He is clearly a man who knows his mind.

“Hold on a second,” says Bikoff, who is starting to foam. “I think this was an effervescent one . . .” He dashes off to jettison the tablet, before coming back refreshed.

“Okay, where were we?”

He laughs. Compact in build, strikingly handsome, wearing chinos, trainers and a thin cotton sweater that shows he works out a lot, Bikoff is a one-off: first shy, then voluble, always a passionate advocate for his product. And this at a time when the rest of us, in his position, would be sitting on a warm beach somewhere miles away.

But he loves telling the Vitaminwater story, and he is clearly a health nut. Admirers credit him with a once-in-a-decade innovation, the invention of a new beverage category: enhanced waters. Others are more sceptical, especially about those claimed benefits and the involvement of Coca-Cola, which had a disastrous attempt at selling enhanced water here four years ago with Dasani. Remember that?

But if Vitaminwater’s British launch replicates its success in America, where it retains a Sex and the City glamour, you will soon have plenty of chances to judge for yourself.

Last week Bikoff’s brand got the “buzz-marketing” send-off: freebies handed out round London, PRs wheedling its name into press columns, six flavours pushed into the right hands. Bikoff jetted in on Wednesday.