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. finalists:

Dushan Zaric is up for Best Bar Mentor, and while he is best known for his work in New York at Employees Only and other bars, his 86 Company recently relocated to Los Angeles.

Harvard and Stone is up for Best High Volume Cocktail Bar.

Seven Grand is up for World's Best Drink Selection (presumably differing from Best Cocktail bar because of the liquor selection as opposed to the cocktail list).

There's no L.A. bar up for Best American Cocktail Bar this year.

The awards will take place this July at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. You can see the full list of nominees on the Tales of the Cocktail website.

See also: 5 Lessons Learned at Tales of the Cocktail 2012

Want more Squid Ink? Follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook.    

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.