Eric Alperin

Eric Alperin hails from New York, but has made his name at some of L.A.’s best bars. He runs the Varnish, and created the cocktail menu at Cole’s Red Car Bar. He’s also famous for a concoction known as the Pickled Pig – which combines bacon and gin. Before speaking on our panel and mixing Gin Fixes at Jonathan Gold’s Union Station Cocktail Party, he told us more about himself, and his latest cocktail invention.

Q. What music have you listened to today?

A. I was listening to Tupac Shakur’s “Death Around …

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Vincenzo Marianella

Vincenzo Marianella is an Italian ex-pat and one-time semi-professional basketball player. (Of his basketball years, he says, “I got bored, then I quit.”) He’s best known in L.A. for his …

Thank You, My Fate

by Anna Swir

Great humility fills me,
great purity fills me,
I make love with my dear
as if I made love dying
as if I made love praying,
tears pour

How We Got Hooked on Credit

Collateral Damaged: The Marketing of Consumer Debt to America
by Charles R. Geisst

Reviewed by Adam Fleisher

The high standard of living Americans enjoy is at least partially due to the wide …

Dutch Mistress

by Joseph Brodsky

A hotel in whose ledgers departures are more prominent than arrivals.
With wet Koh-i-noors the October rain
strokes what’s left of the naked brain.
In this country laid …

Peter Maass

Peter Maass may be based in New York, but he was born and raised in Los Angeles, and attended the University of California, Berkeley. “I’m a Californian,” Maass assured us. …