Drinks in North Hollywood

A bar built in 1941 in the shape of a whiskey barrel, put up by a Universal film technician named Michael Connolly and left to rot for decades before the 1933 Group restored it and reopened it in 2015. The barrel holds the bar itself, with a patio behind it and a bulldog-shaped structure out back that came off the old Bulldog Cafe. Food is burgers and a pretzel, the drinks list is long, and nobody is dressed up. It is one of the last pieces of programmatic architecture in Los Angeles still doing the job it was built for.

Mon to Fri, 4pm to 1:30am. Sat, 1pm to 1:30am. Sun, 11am to 1:30am

The oldest tiki bar still standing in Los Angeles, opened on Victory Boulevard in 1958 by brothers Edwin and Ace Libby, who had worked at a Polynesian restaurant on Sepulveda and wanted their own. Dark, low, carved wood, a rock waterfall behind the bar and a rum list that takes itself more seriously than the decor suggests. It stayed open through the decades when nobody cared about tiki rather than reopening in the revival.

Mon to Thu, 4pm to 1am. Fri, 4pm to 2am. Sat, 2pm to 2am. Sun, 2pm to 1am