I am probably something close to an alcoholic. I rather not use the term but in this case it may be helpful. It started around 17 when I was ashamed about having no social life so I went to dance club, but then I ended not really talking to a lot of people there either, just trying to approach a few pretty girls. Of course booze a lubricant and very often when I did not feel like approaching I just stood there drinking. Quickly associated the idea "going out and getting entertained" with standing somewhere sipping a drink. My parents have always drunk, moderately, and they were okay with me moderate pillaging their booze, like at 19 years old about 2 glasses of wine a day. This made me feel elevated (I never drunk to drunkenness), bubbly, light, and I liked that. It felt good to back to videogames or whatever I was doing (usually videogames) in that state.

Prety quickly it grew on me into a daily habit. However what made me different from the typical AA type alcoholic is that I never drunk to drunkenness, just elevation. So there were no problems caused by it when I was 20 or 30. I could go through an alcoholism checklist, listing questions like any relationship problems (... (read more)

I drink moderately, largely as a social lubricant. My preference leans toward dark beer, heavier red wines and some unoaked whites, gin, scotch, and the dryer end of the spectrum of dessert wines and cocktails, and I find all of the above quite tasty -- though I didn't always. Like a lot of people, I started out drinking in college, for effect and to signal maturity, and an appreciation for the flavors of alcoholic drinks only came after a fair amount of experience with them. Hard to say how much of that's acquiring taste and how much is the fact that y... (read more)

I like alcohol of different types, considerably more for the taste/flavour than for the buzz. Usually I drink wine (red more than white) and beer (that is, beer, not Bud Light and such), but I also have periods when I regularly drink neat hard liquor (e.g. scotch or cognac). I rarely drink cocktails.

My tastes slowly change and my consumption of alcohol adjusts accordingly. Some months I would drink almost entirely wine, some -- mostly beer. With beer, for example, I started by liking sweetish doppelbocks and Belgian trippels, then went to porters and stouts, then to British-style ales with an occasional IPA, and currently I am back to porters and Scottish ales.

I don't drink (or do drugs or smoke). I've never tried drugs or cigarettes, and I've only tasted alcohol, never had a full drink.

I don't enjoy the taste of alcohol at all. The "alcohol aftertaste" is pretty unpleasant to me. And the one time I had a moderate amount of some type of harder alcohol (I lost a bet) I did not enjoy that warm/burning feeling in my stomach at all.

As for my palate, I'd rate my tolerance for spice at about a 3/10 and my tolerance for sour/bitter at about a 6/10. The sour/bitter is harder to judge - I love lemon and lime, b... (read more)

I have a strong tolerance for, and enjoyment of , spicy and bitter flavours. I drink for much needed disinhibition ... drinking moves me towards normal, rather than drunk. My favourite nipples are IPA and Belgian Ales (used to live there). The lack of a sweet tooth corresponding to a fondness for bitter flavours seems to be doing good things for my weight.

Personally I haven't come into contact with alcohol too much, mostly because of the circles I grew up in. I didn't drink for years because my friends didn't drink, and later on because I was running competitively and conscientious about my caloric intake.

Now, I drink socially, but I have a high tolerance for alcohol and rarely experience lowered inhibitions. I actually like the taste of many drinks, and so I've never really put much thought into the fact that I drink (but I do go through some mental distress about the opportunity cost, i.e. "this isn... (read more)

I turn expensive apple juice into cheap cider at home using powdered champagne yeast to consume during movie nights with friends and whatnot, and enjoy mild quantities of dark beer when eating out at restaurants.

I find cider and other fruit-derived alcohols more enjoyable than light-colored beers, but like dark beer over all else. I prefer the fruit-derived forms without sugar, hence me using a very alcohol tolerant yeast in my own brewing to completely break down all the sugar into alcohol and acetic acid. Many people tell me that the bitter beers I fin... (read more)

High end liquor is very tasty, imo. I am partial to good cognac and scotch. We have a poor vocabulary for flavor distinctions for these things. I read some professional taster stuff and have a hard time mapping those things to what I experience.

I really don't like the taste of alcohol, but that doesn't mean there aren't any alcoholic beverages I like - I go for the ones that are sugary enough to mask the taste, and/or shots of spirits that go down quickly and don't so much have a "taste" as cause a burning sensation along with the taste of whatever's in with the alcohol. That burning sensation can seem to be rounding off the flavour somehow, like I expect sambuca wouldn't be as good as simply the sweet liquoricey taste, but I don't think that really qualifies as liking alcohol, notwiths... (read more)

To me, alcohol itself has no taste. There is a certain mouthfeel common to alcoholic drinks, the stronger the higher the alcohol content, but not a taste as such. As far as taste is concerned, beer, wine, and whisky are completely different things. Rhubarb vodka tastes only of rhubarb, orange liqueur tastes only of oranges, etc.

I have never experienced the stereotypical "disinhibition". Alcohol does not make me any more talkative, or moved to sing raucously, or dance, or pick fights, or anything of that sort. I just get a certain sense of detachment from my surroundings.

am very sensitive to bitter flavours.

There's a common SNP variation for that. If you have it, you're particularly sensitive to bitter tastes while young, but that sensitivity turns to unsensitivity when you get older. All of a sudden, bitter things start to taste ok. I like Brussel Sprouts now.

I used to like the sweet drinks too, particularly port. Still do, but the harder stuff tastes better now.

I have precisely the same problem with bitter flavors. I avoid olives, beer, and coffee.

I have tried alcohol twice in an attempt to break my reputation for being a loner who doesn't drink. Both times I felt very drowsy afterwards, had to go to bed early and slept about ten hours. Sleepiness was the only discernible effect.

I don't much like the taste alcohol; I wouldn't say I have a strong dislike, but I'm pretty ambivalent and will usually abstain when my friends drink. When I do drink, it's usually a single beer (amber ale's usually a safe bet; I don't generally enjoy IPA's) and I'd say I end up drunk on average less than once a year, which typically has happened when a heavy-handed friend has hosted parties and mixed the drinks. Regardless of how much I drink, I never really experience any pro-social effects, though drinking more I do tend to feel mentally sluggish and ot... (read more)

I like the flavour of some alcoholic drinks, but I think that's partly because of anticipating the effect of the alcohol. In other words some drinks taste better than others to me and some I might even describe as delicious, but I wouldn't drink them if they had no psychoactive effect. (I was a somewhat picky eater growing up, less so now, though still a bit more than average.)

I drink fairly regularly. It makes social gatherings more fun. I have some rules for drinking: only drink at social gatherings and only drink an amount that does not impair my ability to operate the next day.

I've liked beer since adulthood, chiefly because I love coarse, bitter breads and beer (I tend to stay away from the blander productions mass marketed by the largest brewing companies) has always seemed like a wonderful liquid take on bread.

Food is my primary source of hedons, and my beverage consumption developed as an extension of that. I have a love affair with mead, a recurring fling with whiskey, and an occasional one night stand with liquors at large. I appreciate cocktails, but I've found my tastes to require seeking bartenders that are near impos... (read more)

I hypothesise a lower proportion of drinkers than the rest of the population. (subject of course to cultural norms where you come from)

Curiously, high SES in the United States is correlated with more frequent alcohol consumption.

High tolerance for bitter, love coffee, beer tends to taste good, but I don't drink much at all - not really into psychoactive substances; melatonin is pretty much my limit. Cause is mostly black swan health and mental risks, social risks (less control over behavior).

I don't drink, and don't much like the taste of alcohol in other things; I tend to avoid it.

When I drank, I didn't much like the taste of alcohol; my goal was partly to numb myself, and partly to fit in socially.

There are some liquors that kind of taste OK despite the alcohol in them, and I suspect I would really enjoy a non-alcoholic beverage in the same family concocted with the same attention to detail, but by and large my culture doesn't devote that much attention to non-alcoholic beverages.

Ditto for food, though a lot there depends on the preparatio... (read more)

I hate beer, but most other forms of alcohol are to me like "candy for adult people". If I have alcohol at home, I am tempted to drink it. Luckily, if I don't have it at home, I am not tempted to go buy one.

Explaining why I like the taste of alcohol would be like explaining why I like spicy food. It burns on the tongue but it still makes me feel warm and good.

I have a similar experience: my usual comment on tasting pretty much any alcoholic drink is "...well, it definitely tastes like ethanol?" I kind of figured that was the point and most people who drink regularly have got adapted to the burning-aftertaste-sensation enough that they a) get to like it, and b) can taste other things in the same mouthful. I can also manage to slowly drink small amounts of quite sweet drinks, but not really anything else (and I don't generally bother to do that; I'm just not interested, really). I also seem to be pretty... (read more)

I try to keep my sugar intake to a minimum for weight control, so I quite enjoy bitter foods, but I'm also picky. I drink black coffee daily prepared from a French Press. I dislike most people's poorly made drip coffee that seems to be available everywhere I go these days. When I drink socially, I'll usually either have a bold red wine, a Belgian white ale, or 6+ year aged whiskey on the rocks (hate most dark liquor wells). I find most candy to be too sweet. I avoid juice, soda, ice cream, etc. although I do enjoy them.

People on Less Wrong are, in my limited experience, much less interested in drinking than average for their demographic.

When I was in high school, I never drank with my friends, really, and I didn't see the appeal of it. When I went to college I joined a social group that enjoyed drinking and, though I didn't really enjoy it that much in the beginning, eventually I did come to enjoy it. Now I still enjoy drinking a reasonable amount, and even getting very drunk on rare occasions where it seems like it would be fun. I think people here underestimate how man... (read more)

Drinking alcohol as a social activity is probably the most important one for me - our culture has a variety of social practices for drinking that can lead to fun results if followed (and some others that are less good). This often blurs with social lubrication (do I enjoy talking at the pub because the pub is a socially useful place devoted to providing a space for people to meet and talk? Or is it the booze? Probably some combination, but leaning towards the first one). My family drinks a lot more (where 'a lot more' means average 3 drinks over the course... (read more)

I love the taste of bitter flavors - beer, coffee, olives, etc but not strong alcohol.

I also love spicy foods / curries - for those with low tolerance of bitter flavours, do you avoid these foods as well?

I like the taste of some alcoholic beverages; but, for some weird reason, being drunk makes me feel quite dizzy -- and that's it. There are no positive effects: no social disinhibition (as far as I can tell, anyway), no warm fuzzy feelings, just dizziness. For this reason, I tend to drink rarely, and little.

Edit: I love olives, FWIW.

I have much less tolerance for bitter flavors than most people, but more tolerance than the people who really hate it. I consider myself a sub-supertaster.

My tolerance for bitter flavors has increased to the point where I can enjoy the occasional olive, but I don't seek them out. I don't like grapefruit. I've given up on coffee because I have to doctor it with a lot of milk and sugar to make it palatable, and then I get an upset stomach, though there might be something else going on, since I love coffee ice cream.

Anyway, alcohol. I have a low tolerance for... (read more)

My experience is exactly the same as yours. I'm slowly training myself to be able to tolerate alcohol that's slightly less sweet/more concentrated, but it's very slow going.