DRINK OF THE WEEK: Red’s Lynchburg lemonade

NIK BLASKOVICH / NEWS-PRESS
NIK BLASKOVICH / NEWS-PRESS

Reds is full of new cocktails, new servers, and on the day we visited, about 200 times more people. It’s something to do with the Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co./Seven Bar & Kitchen triangle that Reds has become part of.

Dana Walters, one of the original Funk Zoners, was slinging drinks along with two other bartenders and could barely come up for air. Much like The Bourbon Room in Goleta, Reds is now offering daily cocktail specials. This particular day was the Lynchburg Lemonade. The history of the drink goes back to Alabama of the 1980s as a mix of Jack Daniels, triple sec, sour mix and lemon-lime soda. But time, geography and a few lawsuits back at the Jack Daniels distillery have made Ms. Walters change it up — namely, forgoing all that syrupy mix for a simple batch of homemade lemonade, and using Benchmark bourbon instead of Jack Daniels. (You can always request the original ingredient, of course.) We like this streamlined version of a modern favorite. It’s our Drink of the Week.

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DRINK OF THE WEEK: Reds Bar & Tapas’ El Presidente

NIK BLASKOVICH/NEWS-PRESS
NIK BLASKOVICH/NEWS-PRESS

This drink debuted during Fiesta 2012 when Reds Bar & Tapas was packing them in, but once the nights got colder and Dana Walters started reducing hours, the El Presidente vanished off the menu.

On this particular day, it was windy but warm in the Funk Zone, the Urban Wine Trail tourists were off spelunking in tasting rooms, and summer felt nearby. Ms. Walters had even opened an extra day. And so the El Presidente was back on the menu at Reds, where we first tasted it during happy hour. We returned to grab the recipe and chat with Ms. Walters.

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DRINK OF THE WEEK: Red’s Bar & Tapas Strawberry Valentini

Hello young lovers, wherever you are! Are you ready to celebrate V-day with an exclusive cocktail just for your significant other? We called on our friend, Ali Reide, host of the cupcakes and champagne tastings at Corks n’ Crowns, to see if she was prepared for the big day. Indeed, she was, and soon we were meeting at an undisclosed location to try her Strawberry Valentini. OK, strawberries and chocolate scream Valentine’s, and we weren’t complaining because she had brought a whole container full of chocolate-dipped berries for garnish. You know, just in case the garnish wasn’t perfect.

The drink itself looks like said strawberry. Ms. Reide coats the inside of the martini glass with chocolate syrup, while the drink itself is a mix of vodka, 360 Double Chocolate vodka and strawberry puree. The rim is all chocolate; use a skewer or a careful slice to keep the chocolate-dipped strawberry on the rim. The chocolate hits the taste buds at the same time the strawberry puree aroma arrives at the nose.

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DRINK OF THE WEEK: Reds’ bloody mary

NIK BLASKOVICH/NEWS-PRESS
NIK BLASKOVICH/NEWS-PRESS

When Dana Walters of Red’s Bar & Tapas, 211 Helena Ave., traveled back to her home state of Wisconsin she saw one of the craziest, gnarliest, most wonderfullest Bloody Mary’s possibly ever in the history of mankind. Boasting a serious amount of garnishes, it was half meal, half hangover cure. And it came in a glass boot. With a beer chaser. The memory was so epic that once she returned to Santa Barbara, she decided to set about creating her own version.

Now, as Super Bowl Sunday approaches, Walters has put the finishing touches on her Bloody Mary to end all … unless you travel to Wisconsin.

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