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Riotous jazz music, euphoric swing dancing and free flowing cocktails were symbolic of the Roaring ’20s and the nation’s great experiment in escapism. Thanks to historian William Burg, author of “Wicked Sacramento,” we know California’s capital was one of the wettest cities in the state during dry Prohibition. Burg’s research has unearthed colorful memories of that time, from Chef George Dunlap running afoul of authorities for smuggling whiskey concealed in hay bales, to how Hollywood producers kept shooting their riverboat movies in Sacramento in order to have access to hidden drinking dens.

A cook at one restaurant serving alcohol on K Street even pulled his pistol on federal agents trying to enforce the Volstead Act, a puritanical movement of self-appointed reformers that convinced the government to outlaw liquor from sea to shining sea. But the City of Trees was a shady place, home to a rebellious generation of escape artists who wouldn’t be trapped by their control.

Burg has given a talk about this scandalous scofflaw history inside the Trophy Club, the first modern speakeasy to appear in Sacramento in years, located in Downtown Commons and steps away from the Golden 1 Center, though you’d never know it. Not only did the Trophy Club usher in a local trend of transporting watering holes with unassuming, unmarked doors, it stands on a section of K Street that was ground zero for Sacramento’s bootlegging conspiracies.

“After William Burg spoke here, he did a little walking tour, pointing out the buildings,” recalls Jennifer Robinson, who founded the Trophy Club with her husband, Brandon. “And this building is where a speakeasy most likely was, long before us.”

While there’s not much consumer data on why speakeasies are gaining such cache in recent years, the consensus among those working at them is that it has to do with the exclusivity, the right calibration of nostalgia and the fun that comes with sharing semi-secret destinations in the digital age. So how many Capital-area drink fanatics are in on the secret?

Where cocktails carry personalities

It’s a Saturday night, and Antonio “Tone” Roccucci is rocking his silver drink shaker above a cocktail menu printed to look like a newspaper from 1925.

“H. Dickson, a reporter for The Sacramento Bee, once said that anyone who wasn’t able to get a drink in Sacramento during Prohibition was ‘dimmer than a half-wit,’” the mock newspaper tells patrons of the Trophy Club.

“I think what sets us apart from programs in Sacramento is every bartender who works on our staff, whether they’re full time, part time or on call, gets a chance to represent themselves on the menu,” Roccucci explains. “We get together as a team to do research and development together, then we round out the cocktail concepts that we all have. We offer each other guidance, and it cultivates a really creative environment here.”

Right now, Roccucci is finishing up a drink called the Fusillade 75. It’s a mix of tequila blanco, yellow chartreuse, pomegranate, lime, agave, fire tincture and sparkling rosé. The cocktail is a spin on the French 75, a pre-Prohibition creation that’s been in fashion since World War I. The Trophy Club’s version was fine-tuned by bartender Joshua Meeker. The result is a rhapsody of raspberry and melon tones swirled into agave brightness, with a singing sugar cube effect below its crisp surface of bubbly.

Roccucci sends the drink out into the low-lit atmosphere of clinking glasses and murmuring voices. The bar is decorated to look like a high society country club from the “The Great Gatsby’s” fictitious West Egg neighborhood inspired by the real-life Kings Point, located on Long Island. From its silvered baseball portraits to its bronze-and-glass starburst light over the bottles, the room has all the hallmarks of a classy oasis for sports fans. One reason that’s fitting — beyond being concealed next to the Golden 1 Center — is that the bar is just a block east of where the old Hof Brau nightclub once operated, an establishment owned by Ancil Hoffman, Sacramento’s unforgettable “bootlegging boxer.”

Competition and imbibing have always gone hand in hand here.

Soon, Roccucci is making a cocktail of his own invention called the Chigaimasu. It’s one of the most adventurous items on the menu, an unorthodox blend of housemade “dashi” vodka (dashi is a stock made from fish), bonito flakes, dry vermouth, lemon and sesame. Some patrons describe it as akin to a clear, smoldering miso soup.

“This was my attempt to basically put a sushi roll into a glass,” Roccucci notes.

That type of creative ambition is what the Robinsons had in mind when they opened the Trophy Club in 2019. At first, the couple went with the old-school tradition of requiring a secret password to enter their speakeasy. That ultimately proved difficult to navigate for some patrons, so today the bar is accessed through walk-ins and reservations. Roccucci and the Robinsons change the venue’s décor and cocktail menu seasonally. They’ve received especially high marks for the Edgar Allen Poe-themed “Spook-easy” they create each October.

“It’s really about the hidden door and the drama of first walking in,” Jennifer observes.

What Roccucci loves is how that wow factor mingles with the history of the street.

“It was very easy to get a drink around here during Prohibition,” he stresses. “As far as seeing people come through that door for the first time, it’s an experience that never gets old. Their faces light up. It’s pretty dope.”

Prisons of time

Prohibition led to mobsters accumulating wealth, which in turn allowed some to have lavish digs and a sophisticated sense of style. One low-level mafiosi chasing that dream was Howard Abbey, an extortionist with the San Diego crime syndicate who’s believed to have whacked a bootlegger in 1932. Abbey was hoping to climb criminality’s ladder to suave, swanky living, but a shake-down scheme at the race tracks landed him in Folsom Prison instead. He never left its gates.

Tonight, just two miles from the stone walls and gothic turrets that ended Abbey’s quest for grandeur, bartenders Lindsey Anderson and Troy Grossi are starting to pour drinks in a speakeasy called The Backroom.

Its bar is a sanctuary of shadows that capture the plush accoutrements of a kingpin. Crimson, wine and espresso colors adorn the darkened dimensions. Lambent candlelight is waving across raven tables and ebony hutches. Its exposed brick walls are highlighted by a vine-laced bookcase and vases pluming with a showgirl’s ostrich feathers. And then there’s the bar, which is basked in an outer-worldly copper illumination —its bottles bottom-lit with a flaring gold bullion.

This is what majority owner Mark Dascallos and his business partner Rich Gularte were going for when they opened The Backroom two years ago. Their events manager, Casey Cummings, has an eye for detail and worked with them on cracking the energy code for the Roaring ’20s.

“It’s definitely a moody atmosphere with candles flickering, and it has a really good date night vibe,” Cummings says. “It’s a very intimate setting for cocktails and conversation.”

Right now, Anderson is mixing a house special called the Navy Ol’ Fashioned. It’s an off-shoot of the traditional Old Fashioned, which connoisseurs usually think of as a whiskey cocktail despite the pre-Civil War version being made with gin. The one that Anderson is finishing features Navy Gin, banana liqueur, pineapple liqueur, plum and walnut bitters and vanilla: It is smoothness incarnate, a drink that musters mellow hints of marshmallow and honeycomb while letting its botanicals and bitter nuances shine through.

The mixologists at The Backroom also have a reputation for making some of the best mocktails in all of Sacramento County.

Similar to the Trophy Club, The Backroom works through reservations rather than secret passwords. But it can also be rented out as an events space, which sometimes leads to secret passwords coming back.

“We host a lot of milestone birthdays and company holiday parties, and some of them have been Gatsby-themed,” Cummings notes. “When we do private events, we allow people to make a password for fun. It’s a concept a lot of them are interested in, and they enjoy coming up with secret words that have a special meaning.”

Roosting the night

Then, the whole wall behind him opens.

That’s how cocktail connoisseurs find their way into The Roost, a vintage speakeasy anchored in one of the Capital City’s original buildings that dates back to Prohibition.

The space is a spectacle of high ceilings and red century-old brickwork. There’s Art Deco wallpaper by its cozy booths while the bar’s centerpiece is a gleaming spirit library that is taller than the uninitiated would ever imagine. In the course of an evening, the faces around this room’s burning oil lamps change, but the ambiance stays the same — quiet, calm and contemplative.

“It’s funny, I think it’s kind of every restaurateur’s fantasy to have a speakeasy,” admits owner Rob Archie, who opened The Roost in early 2022.

In the last few years, new speakeasies have popped up in the region, including Daniello’s and House Divided — both in Roseville — but The Roost is probably the region’s best-known exemplar of this throwback genre. In 2024, Whisky Advocate named it one of the top 120 top whiskey bars in the entire nation. And regulars here have the loyalty of a cult following.

That’s in no small part due to the skill of a bartending team assembled by Justin Sheffey. They make house specialties like the Dueling Pianos, an amalgam of Tennessee whiskey, chocolate-infused chinato and coconut-infused Campari, which goes down as a beautiful blend of cool spring freshness that meets deep winter spices.

“We wanted to take advantage of the fresh ingredients we should be able to offer, being Northern California where there’s an abundance of agriculture,” says Sheffey who has previously tended bar in San Francisco and New York. “We’ve been working with Twin Peaks Farms, focusing the drinks on whatever fruit and veggies they have in season.”

One farm-fresh invention being mixed tonight is the Blush and Plunder, the brainchild of Roost bartender Chelsea Kennedy. It was her idea to come up with a clarified milk punch using Santa Teresa rum, yellow chartreuse, Cocchi Rosa, strawberry, almond, lemon, and cherry and vanilla bitters.

“For that drink we used fresh local strawberries that were just coming into season, so they weren’t as sweet as your May-June strawberries would be in the peak season,” Sheffey reflects. “They had a bit of tartness to them, and that paired well with the Cocchi Rosa, which is a red aperitif.”

He adds, “At first, some people can find the atmosphere in here a little overwhelming; but you should just come in, relax, and let us transport you to anywhere in the world.”

As Archie of The Roost says, “The place feels like it’s timeless, in a sense.”

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