Beat the summer heat with Sacramento’s signature cocktail. What it is, how to make it
Sacramento’s summer heat has a few silver linings. Among them: it’s officially linen season — the clothes, yes, but the drink as well.
Sacramento’s signature cocktail, the White Linen, is an easy-to-sip concoction built for balmy days. The combination of gin, elderflower liqueur, cucumber and lemon represented Sacramento in The New York Times’ 2017 article snootily — some would say inaccurately — titled “Cocktails Only A Local Could Love.”
Rene Dominguez, then a bartender at The Shady Lady Saloon along the R Street Corridor and Ella Dining Room & Bar on The Kay, created the original White Linen in 2008 during Sacramento Cocktail Week. Crisp and refreshing without the cloying sweetness of some other fruity cocktails, it was a quick hit that spawned several imitators.
Bars across the region now have their own White Linen iterations — Moonshine & Co. owner Lien Glankler serves “Lien’s Linen” with cucumber purée instead of slices at her Curtis Park nail salon/cocktail bar, while Shady Lady neighbor Fox & Goose Public House’s “Olallieberry Linen” includes additional fruit and lemon-lime soda. Can Can Cocktails (now closed) debuted a canned White Linen in 2017, and Raley’s rolled out a just-add-booze mix in 2022.
This White Linen recipe comes from The Shady Lady Saloon and was featured in “Sacramento Eats: Recipes from the Capital Region’s Favorite Restaurants,” The Sacramento Bee’s cookbook with beloved recipes from 60 local restaurants and bars. Published in November, it’s available for purchase online or at local bookstores.
Ingredients:
1 ½ ounces gin
1 ounce lemon juice
½ ounce simple syrup
½ ounce elderflower liqueur
Soda water to taste
3-4 cucumber slices to garnish
Directions:
Combine all liquids except the soda water in a shaker. Add ice and shake.
Pour over new ice in a Collins glass, then top off with soda water and garnish with cucumber slices. Enjoy!
