Thailand has Sangsom whiskey, Japan has sake and Timor-Leste has… palm wine. I’d gone on a mini-road trip with a Timorese man and his young son. We’d been out to see the statue of Pope John Paul II. The trip was only about five kilometers or so, but it involved rides in two mikrolets and a 30-minute walk before we ascended the hill to the statue. On the way back we passed a group of kids sat beneath a tree drinking “local wine”.

The local wine turned out to be palm wine and we came across a woman selling it by the side of the road. I’d previously thought the woman was selling some kind of petrol. “You want some?” I asked my friend. He did.

I really only wanted a cup full, if that, but ended up with a 1.5-liter bottle of off-white liquid. First impressions were that it smells like raw eggs. I took a cautious sip and shuddered at the strong, bitter taste that bore no resemblance to any kind of wine I have ever drunk. My friend took a big gulp while the lady selling the wine looked confused.

I bit the bullet and took a bigger sip, but the combination of the potent smell and the overpowering taste made me reel back for a moment. I coughed a little and decided that my palm-wine-drinking days would be short-lived.

In the end I spent 50 cents on the enormous bottle of wine, which my friend was glad to divvy up into two bottles: one for me and one for him. I thought, Perhaps I could save it for special occasions.

The mikrolet journey back was marred by the omnipotent odor of the palm wine. My friend drank a little more and when we got off the mikrolet he confessed that he was a little drunk.

Palm wine, my friend told me, is made from the young leaves of palm trees. What I bought is the unboiled version; the boiled form of palm wine costs $2 or so for a 600-milliliter bottle.

Palm wine is what the locals drink. It costs about the same as water and is an awful lot cheaper than imported beer. It’s an acquired taste that I’ve yet to acquire, but with perseverance I’m certain a person could grow to love palm wine.

I never thought I’d come across a drink that could match rice whiskey, but palm wine is it. My small bottle of wine remains untouched, hidden in a shoe-stand where its outrageous aroma can go undetected.