Drinking Your Way Across Malta

My only previous experience with an island the size of Malta is Aruba. Nothing grows on Aruba. Everything from building materials to food has to be shipped in. There is absolutely no source of fresh water on Aruba. They run a huge desalination plant to provide fresh water for residents and tourists. So, I was actually somewhat surprised that there is significant agriculture on Malta. In particular, they grow grapes well. While it is true that we sipped more than a few glasses of French and Italian wine, we also sampled quite a number of local wines produced on Malta and, for our Gozo lunch, a Gozo wine. They were all quite good, but one of the ones we agreed we liked the best was purchased from a veggie stand in Manikata near our hotel. It was a nice red produced right there in Manikata. Unfortunately, you could only get it from the owner and the stand was only open on Sundays. We just got lucky with the one bottle of it.

If wine isn’t your choice, they also brew beer on Malta. Cisk Lager and Hopleaf Pale Ale are both quite nice. I was a bit startled to discover that was it. They don’t brew anything else. You can get things like Guinness in a bottle, but those are the only two you will find on tap. It would appear that Malta is even further behind the beer times than Italy which has only recently seen an upswing of craft brewers producing interesting things. I sense a business opportunity waiting for a brewer that is willing to bet that the Brits and others who frequent Malta might be more adventurous beer-wise than the Maltese.

Finally, if you must have something without alcohol and water doesn’t float your boat, there is a soft drink unique to Malta called Kinnie. It was developed on Malta in the early 1950’s as an alternative to cola. It is a bittersweet soda flavored with orange and herbs. Locals love it; most others find it impossible to drink. Personally, as a long-time fan of Moxie, I found it refreshing, but not nearly as good as the real thing. Importing Moxie. Yet another business idea on the table for the taking.