La Valentina

Dakota Godden

Bare brick walls, faux fur bear skin rugs, green velvet booths, copper-painted bar top... I’m stealing glances at the scenery of soon-to-be-opened Madam Bonnie’s while I chat with all-smiles bar manager Dakota Godden. “Madam Bonnie was an actual person — Bertha White — and she was the proprietor of a brothel that was in this building before,” back when the Gaslamp Quarter used to be a genuine red-light district. “So we’re paying homage to her, in naming it after her.” That history is how Godden got started developing a cocktail menu based on iconic women.

La Valentina he named for Valentina Ramírez, a soldier in the Mexican revolution, “before women were actually allowed to fight in it. There was this song that went around during the time that was called ‘Adelita,’ and it’s basically about a woman soldier. But no one really knows who it’s about, so my suspicion is it’s about her,” muses Godden. It was kismet when he later found a brand of tequila named Adelita to tie it all together. “I tried to pair stuff like that throughout the menu, to make it related and feature the women, and actually pay homage to what they did at the same time.”

The drink is a play on the classic Paloma. “I replaced the agave with a red bell pepper syrup that I made, and it gives it this vegetal background,” he explains. “And then I put spicy bitters in it as well, just to bring out the floralness and give a little spice in the background, too.” He continues, “There’s vegetal and floral notes within tequila, so I was like, ‘Ok how can I get that outside of [the tequila] and get this freshness?’ And my first go-around, I did cucumber and serrano peppers — it was awful,” he says with a laugh. “Then I went back to the drawing board and I just had this weird idea about red bell pepper.” That led him to create a luminous red bell pepper syrup which gives the concoction its color, as well as a twist in the flavor department. “It’s this cooling, fresh background, but it’s not like cucumber, where it’s an overwhelming flavor.”

Godden considers La Valentina one of his favorites. “I love agave spirits. And I think a lot of the time with cocktailing especially, you’ll kind of mask flavors with the things you put in it. We prefer to try and accentuate them, elevate the flavors you’re already gonna get.”

To conclude, he happily shares a pro bartending tip for making the cocktail: “Put soda into the shaker tin after you’re done shaking it, when you take the cap off. And then pour that out, and it will evenly distribute the soda water throughout the entire drink.”

Madam Bonnies

• Madam Bonnie’s
• La Valentina
• ¾ oz. lime juice
• ¾ oz. grapefruit juice
• ¾ oz. red bell pepper syrups
• 1.5 oz. tequila
• 2 dashes of spicy bitters
• Soda water top-off

• Mix ingredients in a shaker tin with ice and shake. Add soda water to the shaker and then strain into a Collins glass.