Sacramento usually sees large crowds on Second Saturday. But Wednesday, it looked more like Dublin as thousands of green-clad Sacramentans attended block parties, drank green beer and celebrated everything even remotely Irish. The following is a photo essay, depicting some of the Wednesday evening festivities. The first seven photos are from the de Vere's St. Patrick's Day Block Party. Outside the de Vere's St. Patrick's Day Block Party on L Street, this dog dressed for the occasion in a green sweater. The party drew thousands of people to the 1500s block of L Street. Kings mascot Slamson showed up to the block party on stilts and showed off his shamrock-covered blazer. He was a crowd p

De Vere's Irish Pub held its inaugural St. Baldrick's event Monday, raising more than $81,000 for cancer research, $10,000 of which came from De Vere's. The pub's roped-off sidewalk was packed with spectators trying to get a glimpse of local participants shaving their locks to conquer kids' cancer. De Vere's had 221 shavees lined up for their turn to get snipped. Publicly displayed on the patio, shavees winced when they felt the cold steel clippers reach deep down to the scalp. The participants' reactions caused perpetual laughter, since there was a four-barber-rotation, and each head took only a minute to shave. The crowd stirred when Shawn Eldredge, a City Council candidate for Distri

It takes more than just top-shelf liquor to make a fine cocktail. It takes creativity with quality ingredients, inventive bartenders to mix them and establishments that like to be on the cutting edge. Starting Monday, the second annual Midtown Cocktail Week Sacramento begins a celebration of really good cocktails and the culture behind them: the people, the places, the spirits and the innovation of the city's growing artisan cocktail movement. "The cocktail movement -- it's just a movement toward quality," said 31-year-old bartender Erick Castro, considered by some to be the "godfather" of Sacramento's cocktail scene. "It's like the rebirth of a craft. And when you get down to it, it ju