Far Bar & the 23 Year Old Pappy Van Winkle

After Hilary told me she wanted to step back from producing Bespoke Art Society events, I went home and sat with my feelings. Contextually, it felt like something had slipped out from under me. Not dramatically. Just – swiftly, firmly and abruptly. Over the last year, Hilary and I had built real momentum together. But she wanted to return to her own art, to step away from managing vendors and the logistics that had begun to drain the joy from her creativity.

And because I cared about our friendship more than any version of success, I supported her without hesitation. Creating art shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t feel like an obligation that builds resentment. Personally, I think it should come from curiosity and pleasure. And if Bespoke Art Society was only meant to exist for a year in its current incarnation – then what a year it was.

Still, as I sat there, stewing in various emotions, something in me needed somewhere to go. I had an energy that needed fulfillment. I didn’t want to book a trip, as I already had numerous ones scheduled on my calendar. I didn’t want to buy anything because I had enough.

I remember sitting in my office, staring into the distance, trying to name what this restless energy wanted from me. And then – the intuitive whisper happened. I heard it: “Call and see if Forman’s Whiskey Tavern has that 23 Year Old Pappy Van Winkle.”

I was amused. So, I called Forman’s Whiskey Tavern. No answer. Then, called again. No answer.

So, I tried The Blind Donkey in Pasadena. The number on their website, Yelp page and Instagram was wrong.

Then, like a nudge I couldn’t ignore, that same quiet voice said: “Ask Angel.”

The idea felt ridiculous. Angel - the friendly bartender I’d met years earlier through a dinner with Matt at F&Bar - Atwater Village and later at Eastside Supper Club - worked at Far Bar in Little Tokyo. I’d followed his culinary adventures, checked in from time to time. But Far Bar having exactly what I was looking for? The odds felt laughable.

Still, I DM’d him. “Hey,” I wrote. “Do you know any bar in LA that would have a bottle of 23 Year Old Pappy?”

His response? “Yeah. We have it.”

I didn’t believe him. I asked again. A quick confirmation from his manager made it real. They had it – at a solid price.

So, the next day, I went to see a man in Little Tokyo about some whiskey and to have a conversation.

Street parking was shockingly easy. After walking in and saying hello to Angel, I eased myself into the night with a cocktail after an hour long drive.

The MIDNIGHT STINGER (bourbon, fernet branca, lemon) started things off right. With Buffalo Trace as the well whiskey – it was a good beginning.

I continued with Poke Handrolls (tuna and salmon, wrapped in sesame paper) and the Maneki Tots (tater tots, shredded pork, bacon, wasabi mayo, sriracha mayo, and green onions).

I got into conversation with another bar goer – also named Angel – about what he wanted from life. He loved his landscaping job at UCLA and he adored his girlfriend. But still, he wrestled with expectations: Does he get married to the person that will fulfill societal roles? He’d just turned 30 and was considered behind the milestones in his family. All because he wasn’t married with kids. So, does he live out his parent’s dreams? Or, does he continue to compare himself to his well off brother that seems to have it all? The kids, the wife, the life? So, I asked him – what did he want? What does a person truly want when they aren’t living out other’s projected expectations of them?

And then, it was time.

The 23 Year Old Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey was poured with a causal, fun presentation. It was fitting that Angel was the one pouring for me and I even took a little video of it. Looking at it in front of me, it felt like a capstone to the final chapter, in a book summarizing a wild, wonderful and batshit year.

I’d begun this year with A Tasting of 4 Van Winkle Bourbon Whiskeys at Forman’s Whiskey Tavern. I’d flown to Russian River Brewing and done the Pliny the Younger 2025: Guided Tour & Tasting at Russian River Brewing. I’d even gone to Buffalo Trace Distillery and done the Buffalo Trace Distillery: The Trace Tour.

I did those things because some part of me hoped a former friend would read about them here. That he’d be proud that I had followed through on the life he’d once encouraged me to live.

As the oak opened up and I felt more of the bourbon on my tongue, I took a deep breath. Then, to my utter shock – I began to cry.

This was the year of the snake in the Chinese calendar. Fundamentally, it was a relentless, almost unyielding shedding of skin that no longer fit me. I’d endured endings that didn’t ask permission: they just forced me to transform. With Bespoke Art Society coming to a close, I realized I had done what I set out to do. I had learned the things my former friend taught me to notice, to desire, to understand about my own art and my vision for my future. Of the possibility of what I could create. Of who I fully am.

I had done the things – the full scope of things – that he’d had taught me to understand, know and want.

The bottle of 23 stands alone among the series of five. I looked at it, mulling over facts. I knew the bottle in my hand regularly hit over $4,000 on the open market. When the MSRP is $450. People go apeshit over this. And there I was – being ordinary. Drinking it as an ordinary woman with a common life. Sitting at a bar in Little Tokyo with one of my favorite bartenders / private chefs / humans I’d recently met. That felt right.

The scent of the bourbon was oaky and smooth, like the bottom of my snowboard gliding on powder. I asked David, a bar back, to smell the glass. He said he smelled vanilla and honey. He’d named the exact sweetness that I was trying to pinpoint – with ease.

I asked David what his favorite whiskey was. “Eagle Rare, he answered”. I smiled. That and the bottle of Blanton’s was what I’d hoped to get during my visit to Buffalo Trace a few months prior. However, I’d left with a bottle of Weller’s and a bottle of E.H. Taylor Jr., Small Batch.

And then – out of seemingly no where –  I felt it. I felt a sense of closure. Not grief. Not longing. Just the quiet knowledge that I had nothing left to give this year. I had lived it fully – every edge, every expansion, every loss and gain. Now, it was time to let go of what was – and be in what will be, in the current, ever present moment.

As I sipped and made small talk with Angel and David, a sense of gratitude settled in my spirit. And I realized it was time to be relentlessly honest. I had finally grown from being a woman who idolized a friendship and platformed one person’s opinion above all others. My friend was my muse – but also a patron. On the other side, I’d become enslaved to his opinion. Performing well for the prom king, I turned into a jester dressed up as ambition.

Then my mother died. My friendship with my friend ended.  And I found myself in the jungle in Mexico, sitting with ayahuasca for two nights (My Journey of Sitting with Ayahuasca in the Jungle of Tulum, Mexico), staring straight at myself with nothing to hide behind.

So – to you – if you ever read this – this is the one about you. Sitting at a bar in Little Tokyo, all I can say is thank you. Thank you for always believing in me and my photography and art. Even when I couldn’t see it myself. Because that’s how Bespoke Art Society happened. And through its inception, I helped artists find their calling. I helped give vendors like Red Cork Woodworks their first market event. And almost a year later, they are a thriving business and – like myself – were showcased during a segment on the local CBS news promoting our Winter Bloom event.

Thank you for being my dearest friend for so many years of my life. Thank you for encouraging my weird experiments – from home brewing beer, to making my own bacon from slabs of pork I got from Costco. Thank you for teaching me about beers, whiskey, fishing and life. Thank you for that time we texted back and forth while I was walking through the Strand Bookstore in New York, and you were traveling in Alaska for a bachelor party. For a moment, we both wished we could be in the same place at the same time. Maybe in another dimension. Maybe in another lifetime. But now, not this one.

But most of all, thank you for being you. I hope you’re happy. I wish you and your family the best of love, satisfaction and success. And as I put down my final sip from my glass, I thanked the both for us killing off our friendship.

Now, I help others live their fullest, most meaningful lives through this – my most powerful form of living art. It’s art that inspires greatness through travel, human connection, and photography.

I love receiving emails from people who visit places I’ve written about and tell me how much the site has meant to them. It’s a privilege to be a source of encouragement, to imagine the full breadth of who they’re becoming – whether or not I remain part of their lives. The way you once were for me.

I asked Angel how he would describe me in three words: “Passionate. Explorative. Elegant,”  he said.

I don’t know what’s next. But, I do know that I have no one else to hide behind. I hid behind Hilary because I thought her ceramics were more beautiful than the pursuit of my own work. But now, that’s done. Now, I must stand on my own as a creative powerhouse, channeling my own art. Maybe that will lead to my own television show on a major network? Maybe you’ll tune in one day and think – “I used to know her. Now, the world does.” Who knows?

But what I do know is this: as I spoke with Angel about the future – about the possibilities of hosting a branded dining event at F&B Bar and then said goodbye, something shifted.

For the first time in a long while, I walked out of Far Bar carrying a feeling I hadn’t realized I was missing: true freedom. I am, fully and without reservation, excited for what comes next. Maybe it’s continuing Bespoke Art Society and transforming it into something beyond my wildest dream. Maybe it’s leaning into the terror of “What if this is happening for you – instead of to you?

So, with that – here’s to an incredible 2026.

À votre santé.

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