G. Snyder

Tequila + Sangrita

Glendale's Neat Bar, a bare-bones watering hole located in the shadow of the Verdugo Mountains, serves what could be best described as the anti-cocktail. Sure, the bar's well-lit back wall is filled with an impressive selection of spirits -- the variety of single-malt scotches alone is enough to make Don Draper swoon -- but you won't be having any of them mixed up into, say, a Penicillin or a Blood & Sand.

That's because the booze here is served straight up. It arrives poured into a small rocks glass and is paired with a bespoke, non-alcoholic accompaniment, anything from a frothy egg white mixture to a bitters-spiked tonic. The two glasses sit on a small wooden board like yin and yang, joined in theory but distinctly separate.

On a given night, the bartender could pour you a bit of Black Maple Hill Small Batch, a dry and oaky bourbon with a sourdough twang and a spicy chest-filling finish, and serve it next to a glass of bubbly lemon-ginger soda sweetened with honey. If you prefer a Moscow Mule, you'll have to be content with having your vodka and ginger beer separate.

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Anne Fishbein

Eric Alperin on the phone at the Varnish

For 10 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 and a bit of sanctioned mayhem. Each summer the organization throws a massive party in -- where else? -- New Orleans, sponsoring competitions, seminars and well-lubricated discussions going late into the night. (In case you were wondering, seminars begin at the crack of 10 a.m. each morning. No rest for the wicked, evidently.)

Since 2006, Tales of the Cocktail has sponsored a bevy of honors of its own called the Spirited Awards, rewarding excellence in service and performance in various categories in a given year.

Ten nominees in 17 categories were announced last week, and this year, without a doubt, Los Angeles represents. Three of the nominations for Best American Cocktail Bar were snagged by L.A. establishments -- Harvard & Stone, La Descarga and the Varnish -- only New York can boast similar numbers. And one of these, the Varnish, is in the running as one of 10 nominated as the World's Best Cocktail Bar.

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A. Simmons

Cucumber Julep

The Place: The Churchill: 8384 W. Third St., Los Angeles; (323) 655-8384.

The Hours: 3-7 p.m., daily; 10 p.m.-close, Sunday and Monday.

The Deals: $4 for selected beers, wines and well drinks; $8 "bar bites" (only from 3-7 p.m.).

The Digs: Like designated hitters in the '90s, gastropubs are getting big. The Churchill sprawls across two floors, in much the same way that Winston, its presumed namesake, in the form of his empire sprawled across Africa and Asia in the '30s and '40s. With its fireplace, exposed-bulb lamps, sumptuous wood tables and long, room-wrapping leather lounge couches, the bar is meant to evoke, we imagine, an English manor house where a Ralph Steadman cartoon of a mustachioed country gentleman might get cross-eyed on gin, albeit to a DJ soundtrack.

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Anne Fishbein

Tar Pit's elaborate bar

When the Tar Pit, Mark Peel's swank watering hole on La Brea Avenue, closed in early March (the victim of a rent dispute), the restaurant's booths, banquettes, bar and barstools, as well as kitchen contents and a trove of glamorous props, all went into storage, awaiting a relaunch. No word yet on where or when. But the spirits, the contents and life's blood of the bar, have migrated to Peel's Campanile, across the street and nine blocks south. You might say the spirit of the Tar Pit lives on in its sister tavern, a semi-permanent pop-up within a venerable dining institution.

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The Beverly Hills Hotel

100 Year Sidecar

One of L.A.'s most recognizable grand dames turns 100 on Saturday May 12 and marks the occasion with a $100 commemorative cocktail and movie star themed cocktail list. 10 special "These Walls are Talking" cocktails, available at the hotel's off-lobby Bar Nineteen12 and the Polo Lounge, salute the Beverly Hills Hotel's most notable former guests from silent film star Mary Pickford (once a neighbor) to Marilyn Monroe who filmed Let's Make Love with Yves Montand in bungalows 20 and 21.

The Beverly Hills Hotel does look pretty great for its age: Constant upkeep and several facelifts have kept the hotel in top form. The pathways are still carpeted, the landscaping is lush, and bungalows are decadently outfitted at the "Pink Palace," which boasts a century of celebrity connections. Undeniably pricey, the 100 Year Sidecar (priced at $100 before tax and tip) is a variation on the classic. Gold flakes rim the engraved coupe. Drink up, as the glass is yours to take home. Better be, at that price.

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Anne Fishbein

Chin-Up at the Varnish

As the Varnish does not open until later this evening, you have a few hours to get some lucid reading accomplished. And if you would like to read about what you may be presented with at that estimable downtown bar, you might turn the pages of today's feature food story, a consideration of the current Los Angeles cocktail movement by Patrick Comiskey, our new drinks columnist.

There are more spirits on more shelves than ever before in the history of spirits, recipes from sources new and old, with ingredient lists that require the foraging skills of a master chef. There are experts on ice, on water, on limes, on glass, on bubbles and foams and sourness. There are spheres of influence, by way of New York and Portland and San Francisco and elsewhere, and much debate on the degree to which L.A. is carving out a niche all its own.

Read the story.

Via Cooking Channel

Yesterday we met Alie Ward and Georgia Hardstark, the duo behind web series Classy Ladies on Cooking Channel. What impressed us most about them, besides their fab vintage wardrobe, was their ability to come up with dozens of genuinely creative cocktails. Drinks that taste like kettle corn, cheesecake or even the ever-mysterious umami -- there seems to be no end to what these women will try.

Case in point: the Beefy Tomato, for which we have a recipe after the jump. It's somewhat like a Bloody Mary, but not. The jerky-infused tequila ups the savory factor, yet the use of a whole heirloom tomato, as opposed to juice, keeps the whole thing light. Grab a meat stick and enjoy.

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Alie Ward (left) and Georgia Hardstark (right) on the set of Classy Ladies.

"Swizzle your beef sticks a little slower," the director says to Alie Ward and Georgia Hardstark as they stir their jerky-infused tequila Bloody Marys -- a drink they've dubbed the Beefy Tomato. It's an odd direction, but every move the women make while demonstrating the drink recipe is supposed to be at half-speed. The crew is getting the final shots needed for this episode of Classy Ladies, Ward and Hardstark's latest web series for Cooking Channel. The cocktail was inspired by a trip to People's Sausage Co. earlier this week. There, they got a lesson in jerky making, then figured out a way to put that flavor into drink form.

This is the process on Classy Ladies for best friends and spirit mavens Ward and Hardstark. The pair visits a Los Angeles mom-and-pop food purveyor -- a French chocolatier, an artisan marshmallow maker, a creamery -- learns the craft, then translates those flavors into inspired cocktails. It's similar to the factory field trips Mister Rogers used to take us all on, but with alcohol.

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S. Bonar

the orange blossom

There is another LA, one where the restaurant food is phenomenal. The flavors are exquisite, the portions proper (neither "bite-sized" nor spilling over the edges of the plate), the prices reasonable and the settings glorious. Further, it is a place where you may get a gourmet meal accompanied by a bottle of beer (no glass) served on a table covered in a garishly flowered oilcloth, followed by a gratis creme brulee, and where mixologists still call themselves bartenders.

We are talking, of course, about Louisiana, New Orleans to be precise, where we had the titanic misfortune to spend five days at an editing conference recently. But, in between heated arguments about the Oxford comma, we managed to find the time to discover an exquisite cocktail called the Orange Blossom in a picturesque 150-year-old-courtyard eatery in the French Quarter called Café Amelie. Sparkling, light, citrusy and slightly floral, made with Prosecco, West Indian orange bitters and St. Germaine elderflower liqueur, the Orange Blossom ($10) makes for a serene summertime cocktail.

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Krista Simmons

Justin Pike siphons a cocktail out of the barrel

Despite the Angeleno phobia of anything showing signs of age, some things do, in fact, improve over time. Cocktails can be one of those instances, given the proper circumstances.

It's said that Tony Conigliaro of London's 69 Colebrook Row was the first to age cocktails, though he did his in glass rather than in oak. Jeffrey Morgenthaler brought the technique to the next level at Clyde Common in Portland, building cocktails and then aging them in wooden barrels to round out the flavors. The use of old whiskey or bourbon casks imparts smoke and spice into their beverages, allowing the disparate ingredients to meld together over time.

A few L.A. bartenders have taken note, and are implementing the technique into their menus. Here are a few establishments that are rightfully proud of their age:

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