15 Best Portuguese Drinks to Try in 2026: A Local’s Honest Guide

Most visitors to Portugal order a glass of wine at lunch or dinner and call it a day on the drinks front. That’s a mistake. Portugal makes some of the most interesting wines, fortified wines, liqueurs and spirits in Europe, and almost none of them get talked about enough outside the country.

After nearly nine years living in Lisbon, here is my honest roundup of the 15 Portuguese drinks I’d actually recommend, what they taste like, where to drink them, and which ones are worth skipping if you’re short on time.

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Portuguese wines worth tasting

Portugal punches well above its weight in wine. The country has over 250 native grape varieties, most of them grown nowhere else, and the wines genuinely taste like Portugal in a way that French or Italian wines often don’t taste like France or Italy. If you only try one category of Portuguese drinks, make it wine.

1. Port wine (Vinho do Porto)

Port is the one Portuguese drink everyone has heard of and that Portugal is famous for, and the first stop on any serious tour of the country’s bottles. It’s a fortified wine, meaning grape spirit is added partway through fermentation to stop the yeast and lock in residual sugar. The grapes come from the Douro Valley a few hours inland, but tradition says the wine has to be aged in the cellars of Vila Nova de Gaia, directly across the river from Porto’s old town.

There are four main styles worth knowing:

• Ruby: young, deep red, fruit-forward. Great as an entry point. Look for Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) for a step up.
• Tawny: aged in wood for longer, oxidative, with caramel and dried fig notes. A 10-year Tawny is the sweet spot for value.
• White Port: underrated. Especially when mixed with tonic, lime and ice as a Porto Tónico. This is my drink of choice for balmy Lisbon summer evenings!
• Rosé Port: newer, lighter, mostly designed for the international market. Fine, not essential.

If you’re in Porto, a Port lodge tour in Gaia is the single best drinks experience in the country and one of the top things to do in Porto. Most lodges (Cálem, Taylor’s, Graham’s, Cockburn’s, Ferreira, Sandeman) offer guided cellar visits with tastings.

2. Madeira wine

Madeira is the great quiet giant of Portuguese drinks. Made on the island of the same name, 1,000 km off the coast, it’s a fortified wine that goes through a deliberate heating process called estufagem, basically baking the wine for months at 45–50°C. It sounds destructive. The result is something else: a wine that can survive in an opened bottle for weeks and age, in some cases, for over a hundred years.

Madeira labels confuse people because the grape variety also signals the sweetness level. Worth memorising:

• Sercial: driest. Citrus, almonds, high acidity. Serve chilled, as an aperitif.
• Verdelho: medium-dry. Smoky and a little richer than Sercial.
• Bual (sometimes Boal): medium-sweet. Burnt caramel, coffee, raisin.
• Malvasia (Malmsey): sweetest. Rich, chocolatey, the classic after-dinner Madeira.

If you visit the island of Madeira, do at least one Madeira wine tasting in Funchal. Blandy’s Wine Lodge on Avenida Arriaga is the easy starting point and runs daily tastings. If you can’t make it to the island, dry Madeira (especially Sercial) is sold in better wine bars across Lisbon and Porto and pairs beautifully with olives and aged cheese.

3. Vinho Verde (Portuguese green wine)

First-time visitors usually order Vinho Verde, get confused by the name, then fall in love with it by the second glass. The translation is “green wine,” but it’s not green in colour. The name refers to the wine being released young, usually within six months of harvest. It’s normally white, light, low in alcohol (around 9–11%), and has a faint spritz that makes it perfect on a hot afternoon.

It comes from the Minho region in Portugal’s far north, where the climate is cooler and wetter than most people imagine when they picture Portugal. Rosé and red versions exist too, but the white is what you want.

A cold glass of Vinho Verde with grilled sardines or fresh seafood is one of those Portuguese combinations that doesn’t need to be improved on. It’s also genuinely affordable. You can find good bottles in supermarkets for under €5. 

4. Moscatel de Setúbal

An hour south of Lisbon, the Setúbal peninsula produces one of Portugal’s most underrated fortified wines. Moscatel de Setúbal is made from Muscat grapes and is sweet, but not cloying. Think dried apricot, honey, orange zest. It’s traditionally a dessert wine but also works as an aperitif if you serve it well chilled.

It pairs beautifully with creamy cheeses (a Portuguese serra da estrela cheese in particular), citrus desserts, and dark chocolate. The Douro region also makes its own Moscatel (Moscatel de Favaios, which is a paler colour and lighter on the palate), so don’t be surprised to see both styles on the same wine list.

5. Portuguese still wines (Douro, Alentejo, Dão & beyond)

Beyond Port, Portugal is producing some of the best-value still wines in Europe right now. Here’s a quick orientation of some of the most popular and known wine regions of Portugal:

• Douro Valley: the same vineyards that make Port also make excellent dry reds, often based on Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta Roriz. Powerful, structured, age-worthy.
• Alentejo: the south-central plains. The reds here are smoother, riper, easier-drinking. The best summer dinner wines in Portugal, in my opinion.
• Dão: mountainous, granite-soil region in the centre. Lighter, more elegant reds that sometimes get compared to Burgundy with some of my favourite wines found here!
• Tejo, Lisbon & Setúbal: good everyday wines, especially the whites from the Lisbon coast.
• Algarve: a small wine region, but worth trying if you’re already down there. Some genuinely interesting boutique producers in recent years.

Portuguese beer (Cerveja)

Beer is the everyday drink of Portugal. It’s also the cheapest thing on most menus, which is partly why it sells in such volumes. The two giants are Sagres (born in the south) and Super Bock (from Porto), and ordering one in the wrong city is a small but real signal that you’re a visitor.

On the islands you’ll find different brands: Especial in the Azores, Coral in Madeira. Both are lager-style and perfectly fine on a hot day.

Portuguese craft beer has exploded since around 2015 and most cities now have at least a handful of independent breweries and dedicated craft beer bars. In Lisbon, look for places around Cais do Sodré and Bairro Alto.

Quick ordering tip. A standard pint-ish draught is “uma caneca”. A small glass (around 200 ml) is “um imperial”, except in Porto, where the same drink is called “um fino”. Saying “um imperial” in Porto is the linguistic equivalent of asking for chips in New York and expecting fries.

Portuguese liqueurs

If wine is Portugal’s international face, liqueurs are its national one. Every village has at least one. Most have unwritten rules about when and how they’re drunk. Here are the four you’ll actually run into:

6. Ginjinha (Ginja)

Ginjinha is the soul of Lisbon in a shot glass. It’s made by infusing sour Morello cherries in aguardente (Portuguese brandy) with sugar, water and a touch of cinnamon. The result is sweet, slightly tart, dangerously easy to drink, and around 20–23% alcohol.

The story is that a Galician friar invented the recipe in the 1840s in Lisbon, and one of the original bars, A Ginjinha, on Largo de São Domingos, is still pouring shots out of the same tiny corner location nearly two centuries later. There’s no seating. You queue at the counter, pay around €1.50, and drink it standing on the square outside.

You’ll be asked com elas or sem elas, “with them” (the cherries) or “without.” I always say com elas. The cherries soak up the liqueur and you eat them at the end like a slightly evil dessert.

Óbidos, the medieval walled town an hour north of Lisbon, has an equally strong claim to ginjinha and arguably the more agricultural one. The sour cherries themselves have been grown around Óbidos and nearby Alcobaça since the 19th century, and Óbidos popularised the now-iconic serving style: a shot poured into a tiny edible chocolate cup. It’s touristy and absolutely worth doing once.

7. Licor Beirão

Officially the best-selling spirit in Portugal, and one most international visitors have never heard of. Licor Beirão is made in the Beira region in central Portugal from a closely guarded mix of aromatic plants, seeds and herbs, including mint, cinnamon, cardamom and lavender, depending on which leaked recipe you trust.

It’s sweet, herbal, a little syrupy, and works either neat at the end of a meal or as the base of a cocktail. Portuguese bartenders have been doing creative things with it lately. Beirão sours and Beirão tonics are increasingly common.

8. Amarguinha (Portuguese almond liqueur)

From the Algarve in the south, Amarguinha is a pale-yellow liqueur made from bitter almonds. It’s sweet but with a marzipan-like bite at the finish, which keeps it from being cloying.

Locals drink it as a digestif after lunch, often poured over a single ice cube. It’s also the secret ingredient in some Algarve summer cocktails.

9. Portuguese aniseed liqueur

Clear, herbal, faintly liquorice-flavoured, and common across the Mediterranean in various forms (ouzo, sambuca, pastis, raki: same family). Portugal’s version is usually drunk neat as a digestif or mixed into local cocktails. If you like anise, try it. If you don’t, you definitely won’t be converted by the Portuguese version.

Portuguese spirits & strong stuff

10. Aguardente de Medronhos

Medronho is the Portuguese drink with the biggest gap between its sweet origin and its actual character. The medronho is the fruit of the strawberry tree (arbutus unedo), small, round, bright red, and confusingly named because it has nothing to do with actual strawberries. It grows wild across southern Portugal, particularly around Monchique in the Algarve.

The fruit is fermented and distilled into a clear spirit, typically around 40% in the supermarket version. The town of Monchique is the unofficial capital and a lot of families there still distill their own, and “homemade” medronho can easily hit 50%+, so handle with respect.

It’s traditionally drunk neat as a shot after dinner. There’s also a version blended with honey, called melosa, which is much easier on the palate if neat medronho feels too aggressive.

11. Macieira brandy

Macieira is Portugal’s most famous brandy, made since 1885 and named after its founder José Maria Macieira. It’s a five-star aged brandy with a sweet, slightly caramel character that makes it the entry-level Portuguese spirit for most people who don’t drink much brandy.

You’ll find it in almost every Portuguese bar, often kept behind the counter for after-dinner pours, and the Portuguese drink it both neat and in cocktails (Macieira and coke is a thing).

12. Portuguese gins

Gin became Portugal’s unexpected obsession in the 2010s and the country now has over 20 of its own distilleries. A few worth knowing

• Big Boss: is the one most Portuguese bartenders will reach for first. It’s made by Caves Neto Costa in Anadia, in the Bairrada wine region, which started distilling spirits back in 1931. Their original gin was called Commodore (a 1985 release that won silver at Monde Sélection in Brussels), and Big Boss is the 2013 relaunch of that recipe with 11 botanicals across four artisan distillations. The Dry version is the everyday pick. The Pink version, with red fruits and dried hibiscus, is the easier-drinking summer one.
• Sharish: is the showman of the group. Made in Monsaraz, Alentejo, by António Cuco, the standout bottle is Blue Magic. It’s an electric blue gin (the colour comes from clitoria ternatea, also known as butterfly pea flower) that turns soft pink the moment you add tonic. It sounds gimmicky and it is, a bit, but the gin underneath is genuinely good. Sharish has 10 or so other expressions now, including a pear and a bay-leaf version, all worth trying.
• Tinto Red Premium Gin: is billed as the world’s first red gin, made by Decanter in the Minho region in Portugal’s far north. The deep red colour comes from poppy flowers, the signature local botanical is the perico pear (a regional variety with no real equivalent elsewhere), and the rest of the botanical list is unusually long: blackberry, rosemary, dill, lavender, lemon verbena, elderberry, and around ten others. It tastes almost herbal, closer to an amaro than a London Dry. Best on its own with ice and a slice of orange.
• Goshawk Premium: comes from the Azores, distilled on São Miguel by Fábrica de Licores “Mulher de Capote” in Ribeira Grande. It’s named after the bird of prey that gave the archipelago its name (early settlers mistook the local hawks for goshawks, açores in Portuguese, and the name stuck). The Premium is a clean, well-balanced London Dry style. There are also passion fruit, mandarin, and pineapple versions, made by blending the base gin with Ezequiel fruit liqueurs (a 1936 Azorean liqueur house that’s worth a visit in its own right if you’re on São Miguel).
• Gin 13: has the most striking bottle of any Portuguese gin (black cats, clovers, skulls — a riff on the “unlucky number” theme) and arguably the most interesting recipe. Thirteen botanicals, the thirteenth of which is hops, the same ingredient that flavours beer. The result is fresh, citrussy, with a slight bitter edge from the hops that makes it a particularly good gin and tonic.

Portuguese gin and tonic is served Spanish-style, in a balloon glass, with a generous pour, lots of ice, and one or two distinctive garnishes (lemon peel and juniper berries are common, but bartenders get creative).

Madeira’s signature cocktail

13. Poncha da Madeira

Madeira’s national cocktail and one of the most addictive drinks in Portugal. The base is aguardente de cana (sugar cane rum), honey, and citrus (traditionally lemon, sometimes orange). It’s mixed in a small wooden bowl with a notched wooden stirrer called a mexelote, then poured into small glasses.

There are two main styles. The Poncha Pescador (“fisherman’s poncha”) uses lemon and is the original, strong, sharp, balanced by the honey. The Poncha Regional uses orange juice and is a little softer. Modern bars in Funchal also serve fruit-driven versions with passion fruit, tangerine, or mixed citrus, which are great but lean heavily into tourist territory.

Non-alcoholic Portuguese drinks worth knowing

Not every Portuguese drink contains alcohol, and a few non-alcoholic options are so woven into daily life here that knowing them will make you feel less like a tourist.

14. Galão

A tall glass of coffee with steamed milk, roughly three-quarters milk to one-quarter espresso. It’s the Portuguese answer to a latte, served in a tall glass rather than a cup, and it’s the standard morning order in cafés across the country. If you ask for “a coffee” without specifying, you’ll likely get a small espresso (um café or uma bica), which surprises a lot of visitors.

15. Sumol & Água das Pedras

Two soft drinks that are quietly iconic. Sumol is a sparkling fruit soda, the orange and passion fruit flavours are the ones to try, and they’re better than they have any right to be.

Água das Pedras is a sparkling Portuguese mineral water with a strong, slightly mineral fizz; locals will defend it passionately against any other sparkling water on the menu. Both are easy ways to drink like a local without ordering alcohol.

Portugal isn’t a country that flashes its drinks at you. You have to ask, sit down, take the time. But once you start, a Vinho Verde with lunch, a ginjinha at sunset, a Tawny port after dinner, a Sercial Madeira to finish the trip, you realise the country has been quietly running one of Europe’s most interesting drinks programmes the whole time. Try them for yourself, and why not grab a few bottles of your favourite, the perfect souvenir from Portugal to remember your trip by. Saúde.

FAQs: Portuguese drinks

What is the national drink of Portugal?

Port wine is the most internationally famous Portuguese drink, but Licor Beirão is officially the most consumed spirit in Portugal. Ginjinha (a sour cherry liqueur) is widely considered the national drink of Lisbon.

What is the most popular alcoholic drink in Portugal?

By volume, beer (Sagres in the south, Super Bock in the north) is the most consumed alcoholic drink. Among spirits, Licor Beirão is the best-selling. Among wines, Vinho Verde and Douro reds dominate everyday drinking.

What is a typical Portuguese aperitif?

White Port with tonic (called Porto Tónico) is the classic Portuguese aperitif. A glass of Vinho Verde or a dry Madeira (Sercial) also works beautifully before a meal.

What’s the difference between Port wine and Madeira wine?

Both are fortified Portuguese wines, but Port comes from the Douro Valley in northern Portugal and is aged in Vila Nova de Gaia. Madeira comes from the island of Madeira, is heated during aging (a process called estufagem), and can age for over 100 years.

Is Ginjinha strong?

Ginjinha is typically around 20–23% alcohol, so stronger than wine but weaker than spirits like aguardente or Medronho. It’s sweet and easy to drink, which is the dangerous part.

How much does a shot of Ginjinha cost in Lisbon?

At traditional ginjinha bars in Lisbon like A Ginjinha on Largo de São Domingos, a shot costs around €1.50, served with or without cherries.

What is Portuguese firewater?

“Portuguese firewater” usually refers to Aguardente de Medronhos, a clear spirit distilled from the fruit of the strawberry tree (medronho), particularly associated with the Algarve and Monchique. Supermarket versions are around 40% ABV; homemade versions can be considerably stronger.