Gin

Cranberry is not vodka's best friend. Real vodka drinkers know this, but for years their taste has been marginalized by a craft cocktail scene obsessed with whiskey. Change is on the horizon, however. As Los Angeles bartenders vie to keep up with the next trending drink wave, venues all over town are favoring clear spirits. Well-regarded mixologists including Aidan Demarest and Marcos Tello of the cocktail consulting firm Tello/Demarest Liquid Assets are leading the way, serving as brand ambassadors to Stoli Elit vodka and Bols Genever (a grain-based, gin-like spirit)

In 1949, Eugene Kinn Choy built his family a home in Silver Lake. Deftly set in a narrow hillside lot, it was praised as a model of modernism, photographed by Julius Shulman and its merits noted in national architecture magazines. And yet the house might not have been built at all, if not for Choy's ingenuity and resolve. When racial covenants had threatened to keep him out of the area, he went door to door, seeking neighbors' permission before he moved in. "Even after he got an OK to purchase the land, no mainstream bank would offer financing," says Steven Y. Wong, the curator at the Chinese American Museum.

There are few things sweeter than going on vacation and plugging into summer beach concerts -- especially when they're free. If you're traveling up the coast to Santa Cruz , you can catch a variety of concerts at the historic boardwalk, including the 1960s British invasion band Eric Burdon & the Animals and '80s rock band Gin Blossoms. You can even BYOB -- that's your own  blanket, not booze. The deal: The " Bands on the Beach " concerts on Fridays at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk will start June 17 with Starship starring Mickey Thomas, featuring hits of Jefferson Starship.  The Animals will appear June 24 and the Gin Blossoms on Aug. 5. Among other bands are Loverboy (July 15)

The lights dimmed at the tiny theater and out strode the play's lead character: a bespectacled, bearded, pinstripe-suited, gin-swilling, mobster-defending Vegas lawyer named "Oscar Goodfella. " The budget production traces his journey from Philadelphia to Sin City, where he cavorts with gangsters nicknamed "Pastrami" and "Sloppy Joe" and dotes on his blond wife, Carolyn, who sighs on cue at his shenanigans. Tired of courtroom brawls, Oscar runs for mayor. "They want to meet you, not your policies," Carolyn says of the city's voters.

Gin- and chive-cured salmon Total time: 15 minutes, plus curing time Servings: 8 to 12 1/2 cup coarse sea salt 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons honey 2 tablespoons black peppercorns, toasted and cracked 1/2 cup finely chopped chives 1 (11/2 -pound) salmon fillet, skin on and pinbones removed 3 to 4 tablespoons gin 1. In a medium bowl, combine the salt, honey, peppercorns and chives. Set aside. 2. Brush the top of the salmon fillet generously with the gin. 3. Spread the cure mix over the top (flesh side)

At the Parlour Room, the new bar from the Hollywood night-life royal Craig Trager, a guest is first and foremost overwhelmed by the wallpaper. Ordinarily, this wouldn't bode well for a bar — what with all the pretty girls, strapping lads and pillars of booze that should be claiming your attention instead. But, my, this wallpaper. If Marie Antoinette (the Kirsten Dunst version) were to dictate a new Versailles inside the Polo Lounge, she would cover the place in this stuff.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, they meet in Mario's, a London trattoria, on a warm evening in 1951. "You don't seem very pleased to see me," observes one, tilting his cocktail. "The last time I saw you, you tried to kill me," explains the other. So begins Mark Mills' "The Information Officer," a novel so triumphantly old-fashioned, so double-upholstered with the stuff of classics, it reads like the story of "Casablanca" revisited, like a vanished Graham Greene.