The argument that one would prefer a milkshake over wine is a weak one; even if that is universally the case, that doesn’t entail that people really don’t like wine. … Go ahead, try it with any two things. “Would you rather have an X or a Y? Oh, you’d rather have an X? Then why do you ever have Y? …
I guess I forgot to mention the other premise the argument uses: Y is a lot more expensive (per unit mass or volume). Given that alcoholic drinks cost a lot more, you would think that people would only pay the premium if they thought there were something better about it.
I claim that it cannot be the taste, because the taste is clearly dominated by cheaper alternatives
There really is a variety of experience in alcoholic beverages that one cannot get anywhere else. … Developing a taste for wine opens one up to a variety of experience not unlike developing an entirely new sense.
Except that my other issue with alcohol is that, within a given drink class, I can’t distinguish the taste very much. All beers, for example, taste to me like sourness and bitterness that stings as it goes down. To the extent that I do discern a difference, it’s that some aren’t as painful or gross to drink. And what really perplexes me is that the least bad, most tolerable beer I’ve found is … Guiness.
Over the years, I have not noticed these wonderful subtleties. There are differences, sure, but the overwhelming bitterness and sting dominates them.
(ETA: The sting of carbonated beverages also dominated my experience when I first tried them out, which is why I didn’t regularly want them until I was about 10 and found one with enough of the right sweetness to outweigh the pain. Today, I still experience that sting.)
By the way, if want to give yourself a sixth sense, I would recommend echolocation or magnetism, which humans have been able to pick up, and which seem to have a lot more practical use.
I admit that I first developed a taste for beer simply because no philosopher worth his salt doesn’t enjoy beer, but it’s now very enjoyable being able to distinguish between various craft styles.
And you prove my point. I think what happened is that you recongized a social benefit to voicing appreciation for beer, and learned all the right code words to use, and now can pattern-match beers to the right description well enough for social purposes.
The ‘deli’ down the hall from where I work sells single-serving pizzas. Crappy pizzas—nowhere near as tasty as the burritos from the co-op two blocks away, and more than twice the price. And yet, sometimes I buy them, even when the walk is not a concern.
Variety would explain different drinks. It would not explain significantly-more-expensive, bad-tasting drinks.
But yes, there are many factors that go into a decision. My claim is just that the one typically given—that people like the taste of alcoholic drinks—cannot be correct.
Variety would explain different drinks. It would not explain significantly-more-expensive, bad-tasting drinks.
Except that they don’t taste bad. All the milkshake question shows is that they don’t taste as good as milkshakes. Your insistence on this is puzzling.
But yes, there are many factors that go into a decision. My claim is just that the one typically given—that people like the taste of alcoholic drinks—cannot be correct.
It seems like the simplest hypothesis here is that people who claim to like the taste of alcoholic drinks are for the most part doing so because they like the taste of alcoholic drinks.
I like pepsi more than beer, and drink more pepsi than beer. I also like chicken mcnuggets more than snackwraps, and buy mcnuggets more often than snackwraps. But I still get snackwraps sometimes, even though they’re more expensive. Does it make more sense to chalk that up to signaling, or liking variety?
It seems like the simplest hypothesis here is that people who claim to like the taste of alcoholic drinks are for the most part doing so because they like the taste of alcoholic drinks.
But my point was, this can’t account for how I describe my liking of alcohol the same way as other people, except that I conclude I don’t like the taste of alcohol, while others conclude it means they like the taste. In other words, other people AND I meet the following characteristics:
-Think milkshakes are better tasting than the best alcoholic drink.
-Enjoy the taste of alcoholic drinks when it is drowned out with some other flavor.
-Believe it changes our mental states in a good way.
-Could not comfortably chug down a alcoholic drink the way we might a milkshake.
I classify all of that as “not liking the taste of alcohol, but liking to consume it anyway”. Other people classify all of that as “liking alcohol, including its taste”. Hence the dilemma.
All that your variety examples show is that if you have too much of one thing, you’ll “tire” of it temporarily and want something else. But that’s not what people claim makes them want alcohol. They really claim it’s the taste. They really claim they spend lots of money to get that taste (think about how expensive some wines/liquors are). And they claim it can’t match the taste of milkshakes, which, contrary to your example, people don’t regularly have and aren’t tired of.
People could have all the variety they wanted, and still alcohol wouldn’t be in the top 30 drinks by taste, and people still claim they like the taste. This doesn’t make sense.
Think milkshakes are better tasting than the best alcoholic drink.
I do not share this characteristic.
Enjoy the taste of alcoholic drinks when it is drowned out with some other flavor.
I’ve learned to tolerate ethanol in order to appreciate unique flavors in the alcohol itself.
Believe it changes our mental states in a good way.
I dislike all the mental effects of alcohol and would drink it more often if it lacked these effects.
Could not comfortably chug down a alcoholic drink the way we might a milkshake.
Agreed, only insofar as this is a point against milkshakes. If I am drinking something for the flavor, I wish to savor it slowly; otherwise, I am drinking it for sustenance in which case if I’m drinking alcohol or milkshakes something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
People could have all the variety they wanted, and still alcohol wouldn’t be in the top 30 drinks by taste, and people still claim they like the taste. This doesn’t make sense.
I’m pretty sure some alcoholic drinks would make it into my top 30, actually.
And yes, even if alcohol doesn’t make it into the top 30, it still makes sense. It’s entirely possible to like more than 30 things. Something not making it into my ‘top 30’ (or ‘top X’ for whatever X) doesn’t mean I don’t like it.
Also, I don’t see your list above logically implying not liking alcoholic drinks (though I couldn’t ‘chug’ a milkshake, so that might be relevant). If you add ‘I like the taste of alcoholic drinks’ I don’t see any contradiction, or even a tension, with the things you list.
Given the variety of counterarguments you have been exposed to, I would think that re-examining the claim with stricter scientific controls would be appropriate.
Really? The quality of the counterarguments doesn’t matter, just their variety?
I’m going to refer back to Science isn’t Strict Enough. The observations I’ve made simply shouldn’t happen if the predominant theory, (“People accurately describe how much they like the taste of alcohol”) were true. The fact that I didn’t set up scientific controls doesn’t change this.
If wine were really so great tasting, worth analyzing all the subtle nuances, worth paying obscene amounts for the best wines, there simply shouldn’t be a wine expert who prefers the taste of milkshakes to the taste of the best wine. That observation forces an huge update in beliefs, even before an official experiement.
If anything, the ones who should be updating are those who are suprised to see people coming out of the woodwork and admitting they actually don’t like the taste of alcohol.
Really? The quality of the counterarguments doesn’t matter, just their variety?
*sighs*
Something which is true is true whichever way you approach it. The variety of counterarguments—all of which are good arguments, I would not cite them otherwise—shows that many angles of approach to your claim show contrary evidence. So far as I have been informed, your personal evidence is not so overwhelming as to require our contrary evidence to be explained by other means. While it is interesting that your peers predominantly prefer the flavor of milkshakes to their favorite alcoholic beverages, more than that is needed to show that millions of people are deluding themselves.
If wine were really so great tasting, worth analyzing all the subtle nuances, worth paying obscene amounts for the best wines, there simply shouldn’t be a wine expert who prefers the taste of milkshakes to the taste of the best wine. That observation forces an huge update in beliefs, even before an official experiement.
I can’t believe you’re still making this case. While I don’t personally much value the opinions of ‘wine experts’, I see no contradiction in:
Wine is great-tasting and worth spending lots of money on.
Some wine experts like the taste of milkshakes better than the taste of wine.
In fact, I would be surprised if there were no wine experts who preferred the taste of milkshakes, even if it were the case that most people prefer the taste of wine. People like many things, all at the same time, to different degrees.
If anything, the ones who should be updating are those who are suprised to see people coming out of the woodwork and admitting they actually don’t like the taste of alcohol.
I so far haven’t observed anyone acting surprised that there are people who don’t like the taste of alcohol. Straw man?
I so far haven’t observed anyone acting surprised that there are people who don’t like the taste of alcohol.
I guess you haven’t met anyone I’ve talked to in person about this...
I would be surprised if there were no wine experts who preferred the taste of milkshakes, even if it were the case that most people prefer the taste of wine. People like many things, all at the same time, to different degrees.
Well, this is where we disagree. I can’t imagine there being something with such exquisite taste that I’d be willing to pay $100 just to experience that taste, when it’s not even better than a milkshake. (I have paid more than $100 for food/drinks before, I’m sure, but obviously the scenario gave me more than the taste of something delicious.)
I have paid more than $100 for food/drinks before, I’m sure, but obviously the scenario gave me more than the taste of something delicious.
Well clearly alcohol also gives you something more than the taste of something delicious. But your claim is that practically no one likes the taste of alcohol, and I don’t think you really have enough evidence to support that.
And yes, that is clearly where we differ. I’ve in the past paid hundreds or thousands of dollars mostly just for particular sensory experiences, and could see much wealthier people being willing to pay a lot more.
ETA: Also, I’m skeptical of a monocausal explanation of anything. It seems much more likely to me that people like both the taste and intoxicating effects of alcohol, than that they just like the effects and erroneously report liking the taste.
I prefer the taste of wine to the taste of milkshakes.
I would much rather drink wine than (sickly sweet) milkshakes if given the choice between them.
If only one were on offer, though, I would drink whichever was on offer.
But if I had the option to choose to pay for one or the other—I would choose to pay for wine… even if it were more expensive. I’d do this even if there were no alcohol. Even if there were no other people around to show off my status to.
because it tastes better (to me) ie—it ranks higher in my preference ordering purely on taste.
It doesn’t matter how many people you find that have a different preference ordering to mine… the fact that even just one person has their preference ordering this way around says that your theory is incorrect.
I claim that it cannot be the taste, because the taste is clearly dominated by cheaper alternatives
I drink mostly water and sometimes fruit juice. On occasion, I buy atypically expensive alcoholic beverages, indistinguishable from other beverages of the type except in flavor and price, because I like their taste. How do you explain that?
Except that my other issue with alcohol is that, within a given drink class, I can’t distinguish the taste very much. All beers, for example, taste to me like sourness and bitterness that stings as it goes down. To the extent that I do discern a difference, it’s that some aren’t as painful or gross to drink. And what really perplexes me is that the least bad, most tolerable beer I’ve found is … Guiness.
(ETA: The sting of carbonated beverages also dominated my experience when I first tried them out, which is why I didn’t regularly want them until I was about 10 and found one with enough of the right sweetness to outweigh the pain. Today, I still experience that sting.)
Ethanol is not pleasant to drink. It doesn’t even have a flavor, per se, just a sharpness and the burning or stinging sensation. To appreciate the flavor of an alcoholic beverage, you must first acclimate yourself to being able to ignore the ethanol itself. Your experiences suggest that you are unable, or able only with difficulty, to become acclimated to this, and thus will likely never be able to perceive what other people are talking about.
The reason why it is worthwhile is twofold: the process of fermentation produces many complex flavors, and many flavors are far more soluble in alcohol than in water. The former provides, for instance, the complex malt flavor of dark beers, while the latter allows things like the woody flavors of a barrel-aged whiskey.
In both cases these flavors could be recreated chemically, but at great difficulty and expense, and the intersection of “people who enjoy experiencing complex, interesting flavors” and “people who actively prefer non-alcoholic beverages” is too small of a market to attract much attention.
As an aside, the vast majority of the market does drink alcohol primarily for intoxication or status, and cares little for flavor, so (at least in the USA) mass-market mainstream alcohols will always be designed to be boring and inoffensive, in order to maximize the market, thus tasting of little other than the ethanol that bothers you so.
If you want to give the whole thing another chance, I suggest finding a liquor store that caters to the beer nerd / microbrew enthusiast market and look for one of the following varieties: Belgian-style fruit lambic, Russian imperial stout, or American-style triple IPA. You probably still won’t like them, but all three tend to be so strongly flavored (and in the latter case, extremely bitter) that it actually dominates the ethanol.
I hate almost all beer. I can discern the differences between them, and there are some beers that, on some days are drinkable—and some I even get to the point of liking—but I would never pay money for beer when other alternatives are available.
Beer is low in my preference ordering.
I like wine. i can distinguish between many different kinds and i can distinguish a preference ordering that I would consider to be correlated with the “quality” of wine.
There is no other way to get the flavours of wine apart from… actually drinking wine.
you can’t buy an equivalent pleasure because there isn’t one.
I am willing to pay for that particular pleasure.
wine is reasonably high in my preference ordering>
so is cider and mead.
but sometimes I prefer cider over wine, sometimes I prefer mead over cider, and a lot of times I prefer coffee over all of them.
preferences for taste change on a daily and even hourly basis.
Just like with food.
Sometimes you want to go for something sweet, sometimes salty, sometimes umami…
thus it goes with drinks.
I rarely go for sweet—I usually prefer tangy flavours or complex interesting flavours such as that of fruit juices or red wine.
There is no way you can say that I gain no pleasure from alcoholic drinks apart from the taste.
and sometimes—I gain more (temporary) pleasure from a higher-priced glass of wine than all the non-alcoholic drinks in the world… because I like the taste, and it’s exactly what I want right then at that time.
I guess I forgot to mention the other premise the argument uses: Y is a lot more expensive (per unit mass or volume). Given that alcoholic drinks cost a lot more, you would think that people would only pay the premium if they thought there were something better about it.
I claim that it cannot be the taste, because the taste is clearly dominated by cheaper alternatives
Except that my other issue with alcohol is that, within a given drink class, I can’t distinguish the taste very much. All beers, for example, taste to me like sourness and bitterness that stings as it goes down. To the extent that I do discern a difference, it’s that some aren’t as painful or gross to drink. And what really perplexes me is that the least bad, most tolerable beer I’ve found is … Guiness.
Over the years, I have not noticed these wonderful subtleties. There are differences, sure, but the overwhelming bitterness and sting dominates them.
(ETA: The sting of carbonated beverages also dominated my experience when I first tried them out, which is why I didn’t regularly want them until I was about 10 and found one with enough of the right sweetness to outweigh the pain. Today, I still experience that sting.)
By the way, if want to give yourself a sixth sense, I would recommend echolocation or magnetism, which humans have been able to pick up, and which seem to have a lot more practical use.
And you prove my point. I think what happened is that you recongized a social benefit to voicing appreciation for beer, and learned all the right code words to use, and now can pattern-match beers to the right description well enough for social purposes.
The ‘deli’ down the hall from where I work sells single-serving pizzas. Crappy pizzas—nowhere near as tasty as the burritos from the co-op two blocks away, and more than twice the price. And yet, sometimes I buy them, even when the walk is not a concern.
I think you underestimate the desire for variety.
Variety would explain different drinks. It would not explain significantly-more-expensive, bad-tasting drinks.
But yes, there are many factors that go into a decision. My claim is just that the one typically given—that people like the taste of alcoholic drinks—cannot be correct.
Except that they don’t taste bad. All the milkshake question shows is that they don’t taste as good as milkshakes. Your insistence on this is puzzling.
It seems like the simplest hypothesis here is that people who claim to like the taste of alcoholic drinks are for the most part doing so because they like the taste of alcoholic drinks.
I like pepsi more than beer, and drink more pepsi than beer. I also like chicken mcnuggets more than snackwraps, and buy mcnuggets more often than snackwraps. But I still get snackwraps sometimes, even though they’re more expensive. Does it make more sense to chalk that up to signaling, or liking variety?
But my point was, this can’t account for how I describe my liking of alcohol the same way as other people, except that I conclude I don’t like the taste of alcohol, while others conclude it means they like the taste. In other words, other people AND I meet the following characteristics:
-Think milkshakes are better tasting than the best alcoholic drink.
-Enjoy the taste of alcoholic drinks when it is drowned out with some other flavor.
-Believe it changes our mental states in a good way.
-Could not comfortably chug down a alcoholic drink the way we might a milkshake.
I classify all of that as “not liking the taste of alcohol, but liking to consume it anyway”. Other people classify all of that as “liking alcohol, including its taste”. Hence the dilemma.
All that your variety examples show is that if you have too much of one thing, you’ll “tire” of it temporarily and want something else. But that’s not what people claim makes them want alcohol. They really claim it’s the taste. They really claim they spend lots of money to get that taste (think about how expensive some wines/liquors are). And they claim it can’t match the taste of milkshakes, which, contrary to your example, people don’t regularly have and aren’t tired of.
People could have all the variety they wanted, and still alcohol wouldn’t be in the top 30 drinks by taste, and people still claim they like the taste. This doesn’t make sense.
Just to add another counterexample:
I do not share this characteristic.
I’ve learned to tolerate ethanol in order to appreciate unique flavors in the alcohol itself.
I dislike all the mental effects of alcohol and would drink it more often if it lacked these effects.
Agreed, only insofar as this is a point against milkshakes. If I am drinking something for the flavor, I wish to savor it slowly; otherwise, I am drinking it for sustenance in which case if I’m drinking alcohol or milkshakes something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
I’m pretty sure some alcoholic drinks would make it into my top 30, actually.
And yes, even if alcohol doesn’t make it into the top 30, it still makes sense. It’s entirely possible to like more than 30 things. Something not making it into my ‘top 30’ (or ‘top X’ for whatever X) doesn’t mean I don’t like it.
Also, I don’t see your list above logically implying not liking alcoholic drinks (though I couldn’t ‘chug’ a milkshake, so that might be relevant). If you add ‘I like the taste of alcoholic drinks’ I don’t see any contradiction, or even a tension, with the things you list.
Given the variety of counterarguments you have been exposed to, I would think that re-examining the claim with stricter scientific controls would be appropriate.
Really? The quality of the counterarguments doesn’t matter, just their variety?
I’m going to refer back to Science isn’t Strict Enough. The observations I’ve made simply shouldn’t happen if the predominant theory, (“People accurately describe how much they like the taste of alcohol”) were true. The fact that I didn’t set up scientific controls doesn’t change this.
If wine were really so great tasting, worth analyzing all the subtle nuances, worth paying obscene amounts for the best wines, there simply shouldn’t be a wine expert who prefers the taste of milkshakes to the taste of the best wine. That observation forces an huge update in beliefs, even before an official experiement.
If anything, the ones who should be updating are those who are suprised to see people coming out of the woodwork and admitting they actually don’t like the taste of alcohol.
*sighs*
Something which is true is true whichever way you approach it. The variety of counterarguments—all of which are good arguments, I would not cite them otherwise—shows that many angles of approach to your claim show contrary evidence. So far as I have been informed, your personal evidence is not so overwhelming as to require our contrary evidence to be explained by other means. While it is interesting that your peers predominantly prefer the flavor of milkshakes to their favorite alcoholic beverages, more than that is needed to show that millions of people are deluding themselves.
I can’t believe you’re still making this case. While I don’t personally much value the opinions of ‘wine experts’, I see no contradiction in:
Wine is great-tasting and worth spending lots of money on.
Some wine experts like the taste of milkshakes better than the taste of wine.
In fact, I would be surprised if there were no wine experts who preferred the taste of milkshakes, even if it were the case that most people prefer the taste of wine. People like many things, all at the same time, to different degrees.
I so far haven’t observed anyone acting surprised that there are people who don’t like the taste of alcohol. Straw man?
I guess you haven’t met anyone I’ve talked to in person about this...
Well, this is where we disagree. I can’t imagine there being something with such exquisite taste that I’d be willing to pay $100 just to experience that taste, when it’s not even better than a milkshake. (I have paid more than $100 for food/drinks before, I’m sure, but obviously the scenario gave me more than the taste of something delicious.)
Well clearly alcohol also gives you something more than the taste of something delicious. But your claim is that practically no one likes the taste of alcohol, and I don’t think you really have enough evidence to support that.
And yes, that is clearly where we differ. I’ve in the past paid hundreds or thousands of dollars mostly just for particular sensory experiences, and could see much wealthier people being willing to pay a lot more.
ETA: Also, I’m skeptical of a monocausal explanation of anything. It seems much more likely to me that people like both the taste and intoxicating effects of alcohol, than that they just like the effects and erroneously report liking the taste.
I prefer the taste of wine to the taste of milkshakes. I would much rather drink wine than (sickly sweet) milkshakes if given the choice between them.
If only one were on offer, though, I would drink whichever was on offer. But if I had the option to choose to pay for one or the other—I would choose to pay for wine… even if it were more expensive. I’d do this even if there were no alcohol. Even if there were no other people around to show off my status to. because it tastes better (to me) ie—it ranks higher in my preference ordering purely on taste.
It doesn’t matter how many people you find that have a different preference ordering to mine… the fact that even just one person has their preference ordering this way around says that your theory is incorrect.
I drink mostly water and sometimes fruit juice. On occasion, I buy atypically expensive alcoholic beverages, indistinguishable from other beverages of the type except in flavor and price, because I like their taste. How do you explain that?
Ethanol is not pleasant to drink. It doesn’t even have a flavor, per se, just a sharpness and the burning or stinging sensation. To appreciate the flavor of an alcoholic beverage, you must first acclimate yourself to being able to ignore the ethanol itself. Your experiences suggest that you are unable, or able only with difficulty, to become acclimated to this, and thus will likely never be able to perceive what other people are talking about.
The reason why it is worthwhile is twofold: the process of fermentation produces many complex flavors, and many flavors are far more soluble in alcohol than in water. The former provides, for instance, the complex malt flavor of dark beers, while the latter allows things like the woody flavors of a barrel-aged whiskey.
In both cases these flavors could be recreated chemically, but at great difficulty and expense, and the intersection of “people who enjoy experiencing complex, interesting flavors” and “people who actively prefer non-alcoholic beverages” is too small of a market to attract much attention.
As an aside, the vast majority of the market does drink alcohol primarily for intoxication or status, and cares little for flavor, so (at least in the USA) mass-market mainstream alcohols will always be designed to be boring and inoffensive, in order to maximize the market, thus tasting of little other than the ethanol that bothers you so.
If you want to give the whole thing another chance, I suggest finding a liquor store that caters to the beer nerd / microbrew enthusiast market and look for one of the following varieties: Belgian-style fruit lambic, Russian imperial stout, or American-style triple IPA. You probably still won’t like them, but all three tend to be so strongly flavored (and in the latter case, extremely bitter) that it actually dominates the ethanol.
I hate almost all beer. I can discern the differences between them, and there are some beers that, on some days are drinkable—and some I even get to the point of liking—but I would never pay money for beer when other alternatives are available.
Beer is low in my preference ordering.
I like wine. i can distinguish between many different kinds and i can distinguish a preference ordering that I would consider to be correlated with the “quality” of wine. There is no other way to get the flavours of wine apart from… actually drinking wine. you can’t buy an equivalent pleasure because there isn’t one. I am willing to pay for that particular pleasure.
wine is reasonably high in my preference ordering> so is cider and mead.
but sometimes I prefer cider over wine, sometimes I prefer mead over cider, and a lot of times I prefer coffee over all of them.
preferences for taste change on a daily and even hourly basis. Just like with food. Sometimes you want to go for something sweet, sometimes salty, sometimes umami… thus it goes with drinks. I rarely go for sweet—I usually prefer tangy flavours or complex interesting flavours such as that of fruit juices or red wine.
There is no way you can say that I gain no pleasure from alcoholic drinks apart from the taste. and sometimes—I gain more (temporary) pleasure from a higher-priced glass of wine than all the non-alcoholic drinks in the world… because I like the taste, and it’s exactly what I want right then at that time.