City pub importing drop of Maltese spirit (5)
I believe the answer is:
nymph
'spirit' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'city pub importing drop of maltese' is the wordplay.
'city' becomes 'NY' (short for New York).
'pub' becomes 'ph' (abbreviation).
'importing' is an insertion indicator.
'drop of' indicates taking the first letters (the smallest possible amount of the word).
The first letter of 'maltese' is 'm'.
'ny'+'ph'='nyph'
'nyph' enclosing 'm' is 'NYMPH'.
(Other definitions for nymph that I've seen before include "Sprite" , "Young dragonfly" , "Minor goddess of nature" , "Female nature spirit" , "Form of larva" .)