but I'm not sure how to go about it (without splitting the INSERT statement into two parts and handling them separately). ...What I have below isn't going to work but hopefully it should give you an clear picture of what I'd like to achieve

That sounds like a good plan , do it in a way that is possible, the most obvious way, nothing wrong with that

Also see String::Interpolate/String::Interpolate::RE

And Perl Idioms Explained - ${\$obj->method} and @{[sort @list]}