Horse's Neck at Shady Lady Saloon

OMG, so happy that I found the Shady Lady Saloon in Sacramento. Ya see, my folks still live in Sacto so I have to visit on occasion but have resigned myself to breweries and dive bars for tippling. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; I just have to go without a good Manhattan during my visits is all. But just this past weekend, when I was hanging out with an ol’ high school chum at East Sacramento’s Club Raven, a really cool dive bar by the way, and lamented about the dearth of handcrafted cocktails in our capital, she mentioned the Shady Lady.

Manhattan

This speakeasy bar has only been opened for about a year and handcrafted cocktailing is its theme, making it the only one of its kind in Sacto. Sure, there’s Lounge ON20 and the L Wine Lounge but they don’t do the “forgotten” classics.

No, the Shady Lady boasts pages and pages of classic cocktails — Blood & Sand, French 75, Hemingway Daiquiri, Brandy Crusta, Zombie, the Last Word and SL fave, the Gin Daisy, to name but a few. Each spirit gets two pages dedicated to it, one side listing the different brands and the other the specialty cocktails which are only $8 each!

I was tempted to go with my beloved Mmmanhattan but figured I should order something different instead for starters. Hmm, never had a Horse’s Neck before, a popular Shady Lady cocktail. Bulleit Bourbon, housemade ginger syrup, bitters, topped with soda water and garnished with an entire lemon peel. The cocktail gets its name from the extra long lemon peel that is hung over the rim of the glass like  a horse’s neck.