photo credit: Matthew Bowers at Manufactur

interior of R&D Bar

You say you don't know what you want? You say you want more focus in your life, all parts of your life, including your drinking life? You could do worse than the R&D Bar.

The "R&D" stands for research and development, rather academic posturing for a drinking establishment, but from the moment you walk in from the bar it's within, Harvard & Stone in the Thai Town section of Hollywood, you know you're not in for the usual experience. Rough-hewn, industrial, dimly lit, with a bar set beneath an old grill hood (we're in an ex-kitchen, evidently), it looks like a cross between a dungeon and an antediluvian laboratory -- if Dr. Frankenstein had wanted to devote himself to mixology, he'd probably be in digs like these.

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Patrick Comiskey

Simon Ford and Dusan Zaric

Dushan Zaric and Simon Ford of the 86 Company were in town this week prowling around the bars that sell their hooch and getting their bearings -- in fact, this duo of drink slingers with a New York pedigree as long as a tattooed arm is here to stay -- both have officially moved west, to develop the market for their vodka, gin, rum and tequila, and no doubt to avoid the Middlemarch winter that typifies a New York spring.

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A. Scattergood

Golden Road's canned beer

The Oscars are on Sunday, and if you plan on sitting through the entire show -- all 3+ hours of it, with Seth MacFarland as host -- well, you might need a little help. Which is why we put together a little drinking game: This, hopefully, will give you something to do while the awards are doled out, agents are thanked (or not) and Russell Crowe sings. For the rules of engagement, grab a carton of Hi-C, your drink of choice and turn the page.

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Anne Fishbein

The Daily Double at The Derby

Oscar night now looms over Hollywood like a gathering of clouds, some of which, for the winners at least, will be parted or silver-lined (if only there was a playbook for that!). Hollywood Boulevard is cordoned off, knots of tourists and lookyloos line the corners. Whether you attend, watch, or both, an extended viewing is nearly impossible to do without drinking.

Of course, on the West Coast the feed gets going while the sun is still up, and so Oscar drinking requires a certain amount of discipline and stamina. You want to go with a selection of drinks to nurse as the hours mount between Best Supporting Actor and Best Picture -- drinks that are festive and light, mostly celebratory, not fatiguing. Here are my nominees for Best Drinks with which to fill the hours.

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B. Mesirow

Bourbon served neat at Neat

The Place: Neat, 1114 North Pacific Ave., Glendale; (818) 241-4542.

The Hours: 4:30-7:30 p.m. every day.

The Deals: Half off everything.

The Digs: Behind an unlikely door in an unlikely strip of Pacific Ave. in Glendale lies a bar with an unlikely twist on the craft cocktail movement -- it's not about the cocktails. Neat is the brainchild of Aidan Demarest, of cocktail consulting and beverage managing fame from places like 1886, The Spare Room, and 7 Grand, among others. But here, as the name implies, the focus is on the spirits themselves.

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Flickr/Kenn Wilson

Hot Toddy

There are drinks that, as the saying goes, hit the spot, and then there are those like the toddy, the warm concoction for winter nights with a capacity for comfort-making that seems almost erogenous in its acuity at landing in the spots needed to be hit.

A well-made, well-seasoned, well-heated toddy possesses a kind of prodigious restorative power. The heat of the drink and the heat of the spirit seem to combine in a kind of factorial of warmth, flushing ears and noses and limbs and bellies fully down to the cockles (whatever and wherever those are), inducing a chorus of sighs, rendering the eyelids heavy with contentment.

If that's not enough of a sell, consider that the toddy is basically the only drink on earth for which you have an unlicensed permission to drink when you're sick. Nuff said?

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Erin Lyall

A Negroni in midpour at the Eveleigh

On the eighth day, God made a Manhattan. On the ninth day, He put it in a keg.

No one knows exactly how or where it started, though legend has it beginning in New York City (as trends are wont to do). It infiltrated Chicago, seeped into San Francisco, and is slowly, quietly growing in Texas. And now (hallelujah!) cocktails on tap have arrived in Los Angeles.

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rfduck via flickr

punch

The punch bowl -- it's the perfect solution to your party drinking conundrum, especially for New Year's Eve. Because, let's face it: Enough Champagne or decent sparkling wine to get you through the evening can be formidable, cost-wise. Not to mention keeping all those bottles cold and getting them all open. You'll spend your whole night in bartender mode, and that's no fun at all.

A few years ago, I switched my party drinks strategy from beer and wine to punch. Chatham Artillery punch to be exact. It's perfect for New Year's because it includes Champagne, but it won't keep you tied to popping corks all night.

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Patrick Comiskey

The Balvenie 50

In the glass depicted above is a scotch whisky from The Balvenie, a highland distillery that specializes in single malts with lustrous wood finishes. This particular scotch went into a barrel in 1962, and did not emerge until late last year, when the company decided to release it as a single cask reserve they're calling, appropriately, the Balvenie Fifty.

The company's master distiller, David Stewart, happened to join the team that same year, giving this whisky a special meaning for the company and for those who love the Balvenie (and they are many -- the company is the fourth most popular single malt producer in the U.S.).

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Flickr/homard.net

Monster Beverage Corp.'s energy drinks have been cited in the deaths of five people -- including a 14-year-old girl -- in the last year, according to incident reports submitted to the Food and Drug Administration.

The reports said the victims consumed Monster drinks prior to their deaths, Shelly Burgess, an FDA spokeswoman, told Businessweek. The FDA said the voluntarily reported incidents are under investigation. Shares of Corona, Calif.-based Monster plummeted to a four-year low after the reports surfaced.

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