Most alcoholic drinks are extremely acquired tastes. Try finding people who haven't drunk much alcohol before adulthood and give them tastes of a selection of beers and wines, and I'd be willing to bet that most would find most of them disgusting.
I'm 41, and I still haven't acquired a taste for beer. I find it absolutely awful. I can tolerate most wines, but outside of extremely sweet dessert wines I have never tasted any that actually taste particularly enjoyable to me. I'm sure I could change that if I forced myself to drink more, but I don't really have any incentive to do so.
There are liquors that taste nice to me, but they are generally the ones that hide the alcohol taste quite well, like e.g. amaretto.
I'm sure taste is an element of it, but the point being that very few alcoholic drinks taste nice until you've spent a lot of time getting accustomed to the taste of alcohol without enjoying the taste first due to social expectations or a desire to get drunk.
There's a very similar argument for dark chocolate - most children hate the taste, but as their palettes develop they acquire the taste for it. My parents introduced alcohol to us from a young age so that it was never a rebellious activity in later years - but since we're in the land of anecdotes again, my original opinion still holds: noone has ever argued they take drugs because they enjoy anything other than the mind altering effects, whereas there are plenty of people who enjoy alcohol for reasons other than those.
Yes. I think there is a good analogy to be made with spicy foods. I enjoy spicy foods, but I developed a taste for them over the years and the "natural high" induced by eating them. As a particular example, I remember absolutely hating the flavor of crushed red pepper, but now I can't get enough of the stuff.
Of course, once you've developed a taste, then you might seek out foods that balance spice with flavor, and you appreciate novel interplays between the two --- in the same way that a consumer of alcohol might seek out a variety of beer, wine, or liquor that balances flavor and alcohol content.
I'm the same way, and I don't think many people first tasted beer or other alcoholic drinks and said "wow, this is very tasty". Especially whiskey, which I find repulsive.
I'm 41, and I still haven't acquired a taste for beer. I find it absolutely awful. I can tolerate most wines, but outside of extremely sweet dessert wines I have never tasted any that actually taste particularly enjoyable to me. I'm sure I could change that if I forced myself to drink more, but I don't really have any incentive to do so.
There are liquors that taste nice to me, but they are generally the ones that hide the alcohol taste quite well, like e.g. amaretto.
I'm sure taste is an element of it, but the point being that very few alcoholic drinks taste nice until you've spent a lot of time getting accustomed to the taste of alcohol without enjoying the taste first due to social expectations or a desire to get drunk.