The growth of this cocktail consultancy and masterclass business is a sure sign the city's drinking culture is on the rise.

It was through years working together at La Boheme that the seed for Callan Fleming and Olivia Freear’s cocktail consultancy and education business, Fleming and Freear, was sewn.

The pair had been part of a rich cocktail culture at the venue, and while they’ve both since moved on, their time at La Boheme had a lasting influence.

“I had an amazing rapport with the customers there, and they would just throw me challenges and I would make stuff up on the spot for them. I love that kind of thing,” Olivia says.

After La Boheme, Callan started running bars for events companies Bespoke and Are You Being Served, where he was increasingly asked to draw on his cocktail knowledge to design menus and train bar staff.

“I got asked more and more to design cocktails for events. It got to the point where I thought ‘I can charge more for this’ and started my own business with Olivia,” Callan laughs.

The business started as private classes, which they still do, but the pair now has a roster of monthly public masterclasses, each based around one cocktail (their next two events cover the Hurricane and the French 75), giving a comprehensive history of the drink and how it has evolved over time, while punters listen and sip from a Fleming and Freear version.

“I think in a busy bar, even when someone’s really interested in discussing a spirit, or type of cocktail, or a line of flavour, you might not have time, or they might not feel a rapport with the bartenders, so they might not ask any further questions, and that kind of leaves them searching for somewhere else where they can learn that,” Olivia explains.

“So we’re going ‘this is what that tastes like, this is what you can do with it,’ and then they can go to a bar and they’re like ‘I know what I like now! I can actually ask for what I like!’”

By creating interesting cocktail menus for venues around Adelaide through the consultancy arm of the business, and also engaging and informing the general public, Callan and Olivia hope to raise the bar of our steadily growing cocktail culture.

“[Adelaide’s cocktail scene] right now is exciting,” Callan says.

“Bars like Maybe Mae, Hains and Co, Pink Moon Saloon at one end, and then here at NOLA and The William Bligh, they are competing at a national level, in terms of the cocktails they are preparing.

“One of the bartenders at Maybe Mae, [Ollie Margan], was recently at the national competitions in Sydney for The Perfect Blend, doing some really, really cool stuff.

“I think that we’re in a really interesting place to basically launch the next step, to end up with somewhere like an Eau De Vie, or a Death and Co in Adelaide, and basically step up to the next level.”

“Considering what an amazing food culture we have in Adelaide as well, and the wine culture that we have here – it’s almost crazy that it hasn’t happened sooner,” Olivia says.

The next Fleming and Freear public masterclass is on 18 October.

We’ll have what Olivia’s having. Thanks for the drinks, NOLA.