One of the world’s finest cocktail hours can be enjoyed in the Maldives, according to this recent piece in the Sydney Morning Herald. When I moved here, only a few of my friends knew where the Maldives were (they were mostly Brits), and those who did thought the country was all about drinking cocktails out of a coconut shell with a little umbrella on top, under a coconut palm, on a white sandy beach, at sunset.

You can, of course, enjoy your sunset cocktail in the Maldives, but only on a resort island. There are essentially three different “Maldives”: the resorts, the other inhabited islands, and Malé. So while foreign tourists can drink at a resort, alcohol is banned in Malé and across the rest of the country. The foreigners who live and work outside of the resorts have to apply for a special permit to buy alcohol and drink it at home — otherwise you can take the ferry over to the airport hotel and drink as much as you like, at resort prices.

After three months in Malé, we finally got our liquor permit in time for Christmas. Unfortunately, the month of December had been scrubbed out, but after a quick run to the trade ministry we were able to fix it and put in our order on Christmas Eve. To place your order, you have to go to one of the distributors in Malé — behind an unmarked gate and up a set of stairs.

A day later, you have to head over to the airport island to the bonded warehouse, which is actually hundreds of shipping containers packed full of alcohol. After about an hour in the customs office, filling in more forms, our monthly alcohol ration was brought out to us in a wheelbarrow. Sixty beers, two bottles of wine and a litre of vodka. Sixty beers sounds like a lot, but between the two of us, that’s only one beer per man per day… perhaps. And it’s the silly season. We weren’t allowed to keep the wheelbarrow, but luckily we had been warned to take a large suitcase with us to carry all of the grog back to Malé. You’re not supposed to flaunt your booze in public.

We get to replenish our supplies straight after New Year’s Eve, but rumour has it that things are about to change. Some people believe the new president, Mohamed Nasheed (aka Anni) will try to open up the country, although it seems unlikely that Anni would go as far as to repeal prohibition. Another rumour has it that Malé may have its first licensed premises when the Holiday Inn opens next year, right near the president’s office. If it ever opens, and it gets a licence, expats probably won’t be able to enjoy a Thursday-night beer at the hotel bar. At the Holiday Inn in Lahore, only resident, non-Muslim foreigners with a liquor permit can order alcohol, and only in their rooms.

Maldivians who have developed a taste for the demon drink — either when travelling abroad to work or study, or working on a resort island — have to truck with the rum-runners. It might sound like the name of a Pogues album, but Maldivians who are caught with sly grog have faced the lash since June this year, when a replacement flogger was found 12 months after the previous flagellator had passed away. Those who had escaped punishment in the previous year were also due to be flogged, as a group, outside the criminal court. Kinda redefines the term “party whip”.