Your turn: convince me that you really, really like the taste of [alcoholic beverage that happens to also signal your social status].

There's a major confounder here: the hardest, least flavorful drinks are also often the lowest-status (ie: cheap vodka and gin are viewed as poison for inveterate alcoholics).

But I'll answer anyway: I enjoy the almost honey-like taste of a really smooth, high-quality Scotch on the rocks. Yes, you have to put the ice cubes in, otherwise you won't water it down enough to release the flavor and you'll just taste alcohol and alcohol fumes. And it has to be good Scotch.

Other alcoholic drinks I enjoy: full-bodied, unacidic wines; fruity wines (Gerwurtzterminer and Riesling are favorites... yes I know white wine is low-status for men, shut up jerk); porters, especially coffee-flavored porters, red ales, and even the occasional blond ale. Hot wine, especially hot mulled wine, is really excellent once you learn how to avoid breathing in the fumes and instead taste the flavor released by the heating. Lager is drinkable but mostly just "carbohydrate-flavored" to me, and I consider vodka, arak, and brandy godawful. Oh, and hard ciders are excellent, not only because the well-made ones pack plenty of flavor from the fruit and spices, but because they're sufficiently nonalcoholic that they offend the taste-buds and dull the mind even less than beer.

For reference, I also enjoy massively spicy food, to the point that my flatmates often urge me to open the kitchen window after cooking a curry. I figure, if someone likes spicy food, and also likes drinks that burn while getting you a bit intoxicated, that's not actually too incongruous.

I do think your thesis holds mostly true for heavy drinking of cheap, flavorless beverages with the purpose of getting drunk, as I myself am completely baffled why some cultures or subcultures have social norms in favor of reaching for drunkenness levels I've never seen anyone actually enjoy. It mostly seems to be an excuse for bad behavior they're too inhibited to engage in without alcohol as an excuse, an effect that shows up when you give them placebo alcohol as part of a control group.

Personally, I also kinda hate being severely drunk, as it makes me sleepy and sentimental, and nowadays the sentiment comes out as melancholy for being in a long-distance relationship.

Anyway, that's my overly long social confession for the evening. Gym time!