Cocktail Classes in Wollongong City & Surrounds

Shaking a drink behind a real bar is a different thing in each of the two places that teach it around Wollongong. Breakout Bar & Escape Rooms hides The Cocktail Lab at the back of its Crown Lane venue, where your group picks three cocktails in advance and makes them with a bartender. South Coast Distillery, up on the slopes of the escarpment in Mount Saint Thomas, builds its class around its own gins and spirits.

Both run for 90 minutes, so the choice is really about setting and group size.

Comparing the two classes:

• Group size – The Cocktail Lab takes four to 15 people; the distillery's public class caps at 12, and larger groups can ask for a private one.
• Choice of drinks – at Breakout your group picks its three cocktails; at the distillery the three drinks are house signatures, plus a lesson in inventing your own.
• Alcohol-free – any of Breakout's cocktails can be made without alcohol.
• Pricing – Breakout's escape rooms start from $29 per person; the distillery's experiences are from $99 per person.
• After the class – Breakout has karaoke and escape rooms on site; the distillery has gin-making workshops and whisky tastings.

For a hens or birthday that wants more than one activity, Breakout's combined packages are hard to beat; for drinks made from spirits distilled on site, head to Mount Saint Thomas.