A land without a drink

Last week I was up in the north of Germany, a part of the country which is wildly underappreciated amongst the tourist crowd. That’s better for me, I suppose, but there are some great areas up there.
One of the strange things about the north of Germany is that there is no single drink for which the area is known. The weather isn’t good enough for wine, so that’s a non-starter. They drink a lot (and I mean a lot) of spirits of various sorts, but there’s no single spirit which is really associated with the area. I did have Elbaquavit, an aquavit from a small local provider north of Hamburg which was, well, a bit rough around the edges, but ultimately aquavit is more of a Danish drink than a German one. The best known German spirits tend to come from the south, including the wonderful products of Schladerer mentioned before.
The north also has a lot of great beers, but it’s not really known for them. I’m a big fan of Jever, from a town near the border with the Netherlands, and I also enjoy Flensburger Pils, on the border with Denmark. I’m also a big fan of Dithmarscher, although I prefer the Ditmarscher Urtyp and Dunkel to the Pilsener. Although Jever is part of the Becks brewing empire, and is increasingly available in the US, the others are from two of the few small, privately held breweries left in Germany these days. One of these days I’ll see if they’ll let me in for a tour …
Of course, with all of the ports up in the north, there are also a host of different imports, but then those aren’t really local, now are they? Calvados, Portuguese wine, Baltika Beer, I’ve had a multitude of interesting drinks from all over the world, but none really representative of the north. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with not having a signature drink.