Drinking Ginja de Óbidos in Portugal

GUEST POST: Caroline Harsch of NextStop24 shares with us her experiences in exploring Óbidos in Portugal and sampling its unique handmade sour cherry liqueur.

I spent September traveling through Portugal, visiting both the Algarve and Amoreira, which is close to Peniche. Unfortunately, the weather in Amoreira wasn’t that great, with thick fog covering the coast for most of my time there! However, the inland climate was much better, so we spent plenty of time exploring the many picturesque villages that Portugal’s Estremadura region has to offer. We visited the surfer capital of Peniche, spent a day in Sintra and the surrounding Parque da Pena, and went on a half-day trip to Óbidos. As the name suggests: the latter is where I tried Ginja de Óbidos!

Ginja is a very sour, almost bitter, type of cherry. It grows particularly well in the valley region of Sobral da Lagoa in the council of Óbidos. It began to be used for liquor production in Lisbon in the 19th century, but it…