Australia's distilling legends set for Sydney Spirits Festival

Bill Lark and other distilling legends will take part in the second annual Sydney Spirits Festival.
The festival will be held at Overseas Passenger Terminal across a weekend in July.
Masterclasses are back and bigger than ever.
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You certainly won’t be left without variety at the second annual Sydney Spirits Festival, which returns to the Overseas Passenger Terminal after a successful sold-out debut in 2024.

The taste for a large-scale local spirits festival is obviously there, and organisers have done plenty to ensure this showcase of Australia’s robust spirits industry is as varied as possible, set against a backdrop of Sydney Harbour. And there’s a bigger scope in 2024, meaning more spirits, more makers, and plenty of those playful masterclasses designed to help guests shake up the best cocktails they can.

Highlights for this year include a single malt whisky masterclass with none other than Bill Lark himself. The man who pioneered Sydney’s craft spirits scene will be imparting some of the knowledge that has made his eponymous label such an indelible part of Australia’s ongoing contribution to the whisky industry.

More of a gin type? Mike Enright from Hickson House Distillery will be hosting an oyster shell gin masterclass to teach guests all they need to know about one of the most popular flavour profiles as of late. If you’d rather learn how to shake with the best of them, take the mixology masterclass with Felix Carter at Ester Spirits, which won gold at the World Rum Awards in 2024.

The whole purpose of the festival is to give guests a chance to try a huge variety of spirits all in one spot, creating more informed palates and maybe even sewing the seeds for Sydney’s next crop of top-shelf bartenders. These types of events are always great ways to narrow in a hobby and learn a new skill, while also seeing just how many options are out there when it comes to both classic and experimental expressions.

How much is a ticket to the Sydney Spirits Festival?

The Sydney Spirits Festival doesn’t come cheap. Standard entry to a 3.5 hour tasting session on the Friday evening is priced at $94.47, but that price includes all you can sample in that time frame. You’d need to be sipping on quite a wide variety if you want to make up value there.

You’re also paying extra if you want to participate in the masterclasses. The Bill Lark masterclass, for example, is $229.33 for just under 2-hours of tastings and wisdom guided by the man himself. The other masterclasses are $187.83, which is still quite a pretty penny to pay so you’d want to make sure you’re going to actually use this type of knowledge.