Eric Alperin

Is The Varnish the Best Bar in the World? Spirited Bar Awards Finalists Announced

Hot on the heels of last year's Best American Cocktail Bar award at Tales of the Cocktail, The Varnish is this year a finalist for World's Best Cocktail Bar, along with 9 other finalists. Eric Alperin, who leads the crew at The Varnish, is also up for American Bartender of the Year. Other L.A. fin ... More >>

Cocktail Nerdom: Happy Birthday Washington Irving A Recipe For The Sleepy Hollow Cocktail

Today in 1873, Washington Irving was born in New York City. It was the same week the American Revolution ended, and Irving was named after the hero of the day, George Washington.

Cole's: 99 Essential Restaurants 2013

Cocktail Nerdom: Happy Birthday John Steinbeck A Recipe for the Jack Rose Cocktail

Today is John Steinbeck's birthday -- the novelist who wrote about our great state perhaps better than anyone else would have been 111 today. Steinbeck was a great drinker, and his favorite drink was the Jack Rose, one of those cocktails that's pure alchemy: You put in applejack and grenadine, two ... More >>

Cocktail Nerdom: Happy Birthday Robert Burns A Recipe For The Bobby Burns Cocktail

Today in 1759, Robert Burns was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. He became the country's most famous poet and lyricist, was known as Bard of Ayrshire, and in Scotland simply as The Bard. He wrote the song "Auld Lang Syne," is considered a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and was influential to the Socia ... More >>

Cocktail Nerdom: Prohibition, Those Who Flouted It Eric Alperin's Scofflaw Cocktail Recipe

Prohibition, the law that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol in the United States, was ratified as the 18th amendment on Jan. 16, 1919, and went into effect on Jan. 16, 1920. In other words, this day 93 years ago was a very sad day. And yet, some good things came out o ... More >>

Where the Bartenders Drink: The Varnish's Eric Alperin

"People think that if you work with high end cocktails you spend all your time drinking in upscale bars," says Eric Alperin, the bartender behind The Varnish. "But that's not necessarily the case." And while Alperin says he does spend a lot of time checking out his friend's bars to see what the othe ... More >>

Tales of the Cocktail Nominees Announced: Congrats, Los Angeles

For ten years, Tales of the Cocktail has been doing for cocktail culture what the James Beard Foundation has been doing for food culture: advancing the craft of the drink through education, networking, promotion, as well as a bit of sanctioned mayhem. Each summer the organization throws a massive pa ... More >>

A Plea for Pulque, Mexico's Lost Beverage

Lately the thought of pulque, a fermented beverage of Mexico made from sap of the maguey cactus, has been haunting my dreams. It wasn't too long ago that a friend introduced me to a vendor selling jugs filled with pulque for a few dollars a pop at one of those Eastside street fairs that crop up on ... More >>

Local Gifts For The Mixology-Obsessed At Bar Keeper Joe Keeper On Managing Celebrity Bartender Relations

jgarbeeBar Keeper Cocktail Gift Box​You may recall that about this time last year, Bar Keeper owner Joe Keeper introduced several clever holiday gift boxes created by L.A.-area mixologists. Each contained recipes by the likes of Marcos Tello and Matt Biancello, plus the spirits and bottled mix ... More >>

Ken Burns' Prohibition: Bootleggers, Organized Crime The Glamorization of Getting Blitzed

We all know that Prohibition was a brief, controversial, Jazz Age constitutional amendment that made drinking a big, jail-worthy offense, and turned on a spigot of organized crime instead. But did you know about the saga of how criminalizing the sale, manufacture and transporting of all things firew ... More >>

What To Drink While Watching A PBS Doc About Prohibition: The Scofflaw

In our recent conversation with Ken Burns, the award-winning filmmaker with the distinctive bowl-shaped haircut admitted that many who've watched his and Lynn Novick's 5 ½ hour documentary Prohibition end up with cocktail-cravings. Which got us thinking: What if we were to ask Eric Alperin, co-owne ... More >>

Tales of the Cocktail: A Report from New Orleans

​It's Sunday morning, I am at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, and I am scraping up the pieces of the week like a crumber on a tablecloth. (Tales, as I will heretofore call it, is the grand annual gathering of the nation's cocktailians, and as such is not for the weak.) Debris from last n ... More >>

10 Cinco de Mayo Alternatives to the Margarita 2 Cocktail Recipes

Espolón TequilaThe Varnish's Bebida de Puebla ​ Sometimes you just want a quiet place and a well-done cocktail to celebrate the Mexicans' victory over the French in the 1862 Battle of Puebla. Thankfully the cocktail-savvy need not fret, as the following L.A. bars have alternatives for those s ... More >>

L.A.'s Best Cocktails

Our 55 favorites and where to find them

Best Speakeasy: The Varnish

Anne FishbeinEric Alperin on the phone at The Varnish​ The Varnish isn't the obscurest of bars; far from it. You'll find no secret entrance, obscure protocol or whiff of illegality; you don't have to walk through a coat closet or trip down the stairs off an alley. But even on a block crowded ... More >>

Get Out Your Prohibition-era Outfit: Jonathan Gold's Speakeasy Cocktail Party is Saturday Night

ZocaloMr. Gold and company talking shop in 2009 at Union Station​ Time to get out the flapper dresses, the Prohibition-era whatsits, the hipper-than-thou suspenders and cloche hats and sparkly bits, and head on down to Union Station (please God, take the Metro) this Saturday night for Jonathan ... More >>

Cold as a Kudzu Vine in Winter

Yu Chun's naengmyon for a hot summer's day

Tales of the Cocktail 2010: Your Los Angeles Mixologist Contingent

If you're typically on the receiving end of the Saturday night cocktail shaker, you may not have heard of Tales of the Cocktail, the see-and-be-seen event for cocktail and spirits professionals in New Orleans every July. If you're a mixologist, you likely at one point considered giving a seminar on ... More >>

Plate Spinning: Listings From the Past Week

Some food for thought from local, national and international news sources from this past week: --Jonathan Gold, Eric Alperin, Mark Peel and more on the best dining neighborhoods of 2009. [EaterLA] --Early '90s flashback for the LA Times Test Kitchen. [Daily Dish] --Anthony Bourdain pays tri ... More >>

The Bubbly Bride Cocktail Book: Drinks for the Bride 2 Cocktail Recipes

Books about weddings are usually sappy and serious, filled with romantic (read: corny) traditions. But for her new book, The Bubbly Bride: Your Ultimate Wedding Cocktail Guide, which comes out today, The Liquid Muse blogger and cocktail consultant Natalie Bovis-Nelsen ups the ante. With cocktail rec ... More >>

And the Morn Shall Be Filled with Cocktail: The Champagne Cocktail's Start 4 Cocktail Recipes

For some, winter signifies the anticipation of ski trips and memories of Asti Spumante commercials (what a jerk!) For others, it means hard-won-physique-covering-puffy-coats and rising for work in the dark/returning home in much of the same. Here are some things to be thankful for: 1. It doesn't sn ... More >>

The James Beard Foundation's Invitational: Food and Cocktails Duke It Out

From 6:30 p.m. until the lights rose at 2:00 a.m. this past Monday (well, Tuesday), Squid Ink put in a full work day at The James Beard Foundation's L.A. Chef Invitational at The Foundry. As enjoyable as the evening was, good food and classic cocktails are difficult to mix. Eric Greenspan noted th ... More >>

James Beard Foundation LA Chef Invitational At The Foundry: Eat, Drink, Repeat

A fairly high percentage of L.A.'s finer dining restaurants are closed on Mondays. Next Monday that's probably a good thing, as not a few of them will be at The Foundry on Melrose. Eric Greenspan, chef-owner of The Foundry, will be hosting The James Beard Foundation L.A. Chef Invitational, a 5-cours ... More >>

Evan Kleiman's Good Food Program Tomorrow: Gold & Parsons on the Demise of Gourmet

Anyone who's been downing Eric Alperin's violet-scented cocktails to cope with living in a post-Gourmet world should get up at least by 11 tomorrow morning and turn on the radio. On KCRW's Good Food program, Evan Kleiman will be discussing the demise of the much-loved magazine with the Weekly's Jona ... More >>

Drinking In The Afternoon: A Scotch Tutorial How to Hang Out With the Southern California US Bartending Guild

If you've ever wondered why there are no Scottish Olympians, it's because they drink whiskey instead of water. Or so says Martin Daraz, Highland Park's Brand Ambassador who last Tuesday led a Scotch intensive at Seven Grand. Free to members of the Southern California United States Bartending Guild ... More >>

August Madness: The Doheny Hosts a Sweet Sixteen Chartreuse Competition

Green Chartreuse shots for breakfast kick off a Monday right nice, especially when they're being served to you on the patio at The Doheny. Starting at the ungodly hour of noon, sixteen men and women representing the city's top drinking establishments--The Varnish, The Doheny, SLS, Rivera, Copa d'Oro ... More >>

A Survivor's Guide to Food Festivals: Hydrate, Recycle, Pace Yourself & Don't Stalk The Chefs

Between the Gold Standard, Taste of the Nation L.A., and the Grilled Cheese Invitational, Los Angeles has hosted enough themed foodie conventions to provoke Christopher Guest's next mockumentary. Next weekend, the first annual Korean BBQ Festival and Cook-Off kicks off in K-Town, and on August 20th, ... More >>

But How's the Food? Talking Hospitality Design with Ricki Kline, 213

Photo credit: David WaldorfRicki Kline imbibes interior design.​As the designer behind the distinct venues owned and operated by Cedd Moses's 213 group, Ricki Kline is one of the key people involved in a string of nightlife venues that have transformed Angelenos' expectations of what bars Down ... More >>

The Bees Knees: A Prohibition-era Cocktail You Don't Have to Hide

The Bees Knees is: A. A saying from the 1920's meaning "the height of excellence." B. A Prohibition-era cocktail. C. A drink made with honey to mask the smell of liquor.

Where to Drink Now: The New Cocktailian's Guide

The New Cocktailians

The farmers market–loving, sleeve garter–wearing ladies and gentlemen of the bar taking over L.A.'s restaurants one glass at a time