I'm not sure I understand what you mean by juxtapose but this works for me-

$var1 = "cream";
$var2 = "coffee";
$var3 = $var2 . " & " . $var1;
print $var3 # prints "coffee & cream"
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which uses the '.' operator to concatenate the strings, is that what you wanted?

--
my $chainsaw = 'Perl';