Call him Mr. Freeze: Eric Alperin on ice and building LA’s best cocktails

Eric Alperin refers to ice as “the bartender’s flame” —the focal point from which all cocktails are built. Block ice, favored by Alperin, has less surface area and properly dilutes a drink. From the cracking of the tin to the ice going into a mixing glass to an aggressive shake, the sound of ice will tell you what’s happening in a cocktail. He freezes blocks up to two to three days and has a whole chapter devoted to ice in his memoir “Unvarnished.”