My theory is that the main reason people come to enjoy the taste of alcohol is because of conditioning. You drink alcohol and your mind detects the flavor of the alcohol. Concurrently, your mind begins to feel the psychoactive effects of the alcohol, which include improvement in mood, mild euphoria, decreased anxiety, increased self-confidence and increased sociability. This effect comes quickly, so you mind readily associates the two stimuli. Because of that association, you begin to enjoy the taste of the alcohol itself. So to explicitly answer your question, I think drinking leads to enjoying drinking more most of the time for people who haven’t formed that association, and the original producer of those positive effects is the alcohol.
There is no bitter drink that people become connoisseurs of that does not have psychoactive properties that I know of (although I’d love to hear examples). Tea, coffee, beer, and wine all have psychoactive properties, and each has a following of people who work to detect minute flavor differences in them (“tasting notes”) and say they are enjoyable. Given that many plants are bitter and are not psychoactive, isn’t it suspicious that you don’t find connoisseurs of drinking these other beverages, or that they aren’t equally popular? Even the most common herbal teas are mildly psychoactive, I believe (e.g. chamomile, peppermint).
My theory is that the main reason people come to enjoy the taste of alcohol is because of conditioning. You drink alcohol and your mind detects the flavor of the alcohol.
There are big problems right here. Alcohol—that is, ethanol, C2H5OH—is basically tasteless (Wikipedia says it has “a slight odor”). Ethanol diluted with water is called vodka and the taste of unflavored vodka is basically the taste of impurities left from the distillation process (+ overtones from water, etc.).
When most people speak of the “flavor” of alcohol they mean the burning sensation in the mouth.
However that burning sensation is completely absent in beer and is a very minor factor, if any, in the flavor of dry wines which are typically 10-12% alcohol and in which the taste of alcohol is suppressed by the the acidity, the sugar, the tannins, etc.
If you theory were correct, people would drink vodka for the flavor and ignore drinks where the taste of alcohol is not detectable (beer, wine). I don’t think that matches reality.
It’s a bit more complicated—there are flavors which are hard to have without alcohol as they dissolve neither in water nor in fat, the usual carriers, but do dissolve in alcohol.
Even among beers where the “burning sensation” is entirely absent, the flavor diversity is huge—from Belgian lambics which are almost pure fruit or berry to stouts with dark, burnt flavors.
I worded that poorly. I wasn’t referring to the flavor of the ethanol, I was referring to the flavor of the alcoholic beverage. And by flavor I was really referring to the sensory experience of consuming the beverage, including taste, smell and touch sensations, not specifically the way it binds to receptors in your taste buds. So I don’t think that’s a big problem, more like a nitpick. I encourage you to be more charitable in your future readings of my comments, to say “what here might be true, or pointing to a true effect” and then engaging with that, rather than searching for things to be dismissive about.
From the inside, it genuinely feels like I enjoy the sensation of drinking whiskey. I am the sort of person that will look for tasting notes in spirits. But I don’t drink non psychoactive drinks that way, and no one else does either, which you would expect they would if the flavor’s subtle complexity on its own were enough to explain the fact that it tastes good. If everyone were going around drinking something that tasted just like 30 year-old scotch, but without alcohol, and they all talked about how interesting, subtle and complex its flavor profile it, I’m pretty sure I would have tried it once and said, “This tastes gross” and never tried it again. So I don’t think a purely social explanation is sufficient.
I was referring to the flavor of the alcoholic beverage
I don’t understand what do you mean. There is no the alcoholic beverage. The flavor of a Bud Light is entirely different from the flavor of an Imperial Stout which is entirely different from the flavor of a Cabernet red wine which is entirely different from the flavor of tequila, etc. etc.
I’m not nitpicking, I’m disagreeing with you :-)
But I don’t drink non psychoactive drinks that way, and no one else does either
However a lot of people eat food this way. Cheese, for example, has no psychoactive qualities and comes in a very large variety of flavors including ones which are unusual and offputting to some people.
I suspect 9eB1 meant that a drink should have “psychoactive properties” to gather a culture of “tasting notes” around its perceived “flavour properties” and somehow although people drink for the psychoactive properties, they believe they drink for the flavour properties.
I agree with the variations in cheese flavours that people talk about; and also bread for that matter. Also fish, smoked foods, vinegars, oils, cake...
Also worth adding is things like “coffee flavour” would not be appealing if people didn’t also like the flavour. Some people below have mentioned liking coffee icecream but not coffee.
I suspect 9eB1 meant that a drink should have “psychoactive properties” to gather a culture of “tasting notes” around its perceived “flavour properties” and somehow although people drink for the psychoactive properties, they believe they drink for the flavour properties.
Yes, I think he means something like that and I disagree with that. I think alcoholic drinks actually have a very diverse and interesting set of flavors that are worth exploring even without the psychoactive effect of alcohol. De gustibus, of course...
I originally thought by repeat exposure you were referring to an acclimatisation to the taste, and eventually “getting used to the bad parts” so that you can taste the more complicated parts that everyone says they like.
My theory is that the main reason people come to enjoy the taste of alcohol is because of conditioning. You drink alcohol and your mind detects the flavor of the alcohol. Concurrently, your mind begins to feel the psychoactive effects of the alcohol, which include improvement in mood, mild euphoria, decreased anxiety, increased self-confidence and increased sociability. This effect comes quickly, so you mind readily associates the two stimuli. Because of that association, you begin to enjoy the taste of the alcohol itself. So to explicitly answer your question, I think drinking leads to enjoying drinking more most of the time for people who haven’t formed that association, and the original producer of those positive effects is the alcohol.
There is no bitter drink that people become connoisseurs of that does not have psychoactive properties that I know of (although I’d love to hear examples). Tea, coffee, beer, and wine all have psychoactive properties, and each has a following of people who work to detect minute flavor differences in them (“tasting notes”) and say they are enjoyable. Given that many plants are bitter and are not psychoactive, isn’t it suspicious that you don’t find connoisseurs of drinking these other beverages, or that they aren’t equally popular? Even the most common herbal teas are mildly psychoactive, I believe (e.g. chamomile, peppermint).
There are big problems right here. Alcohol—that is, ethanol, C2H5OH—is basically tasteless (Wikipedia says it has “a slight odor”). Ethanol diluted with water is called vodka and the taste of unflavored vodka is basically the taste of impurities left from the distillation process (+ overtones from water, etc.).
When most people speak of the “flavor” of alcohol they mean the burning sensation in the mouth.
However that burning sensation is completely absent in beer and is a very minor factor, if any, in the flavor of dry wines which are typically 10-12% alcohol and in which the taste of alcohol is suppressed by the the acidity, the sugar, the tannins, etc.
If you theory were correct, people would drink vodka for the flavor and ignore drinks where the taste of alcohol is not detectable (beer, wine). I don’t think that matches reality.
I assume there are two categories of “flavour”.
the burning sensation of the pure ethanol, being at whatever strength the concentration the drink has of ethanol.
the flavours of the drink; sans-alcohol.
I seem to not like either of them.
It’s a bit more complicated—there are flavors which are hard to have without alcohol as they dissolve neither in water nor in fat, the usual carriers, but do dissolve in alcohol.
Even among beers where the “burning sensation” is entirely absent, the flavor diversity is huge—from Belgian lambics which are almost pure fruit or berry to stouts with dark, burnt flavors.
I worded that poorly. I wasn’t referring to the flavor of the ethanol, I was referring to the flavor of the alcoholic beverage. And by flavor I was really referring to the sensory experience of consuming the beverage, including taste, smell and touch sensations, not specifically the way it binds to receptors in your taste buds. So I don’t think that’s a big problem, more like a nitpick. I encourage you to be more charitable in your future readings of my comments, to say “what here might be true, or pointing to a true effect” and then engaging with that, rather than searching for things to be dismissive about.
From the inside, it genuinely feels like I enjoy the sensation of drinking whiskey. I am the sort of person that will look for tasting notes in spirits. But I don’t drink non psychoactive drinks that way, and no one else does either, which you would expect they would if the flavor’s subtle complexity on its own were enough to explain the fact that it tastes good. If everyone were going around drinking something that tasted just like 30 year-old scotch, but without alcohol, and they all talked about how interesting, subtle and complex its flavor profile it, I’m pretty sure I would have tried it once and said, “This tastes gross” and never tried it again. So I don’t think a purely social explanation is sufficient.
I don’t understand what do you mean. There is no the alcoholic beverage. The flavor of a Bud Light is entirely different from the flavor of an Imperial Stout which is entirely different from the flavor of a Cabernet red wine which is entirely different from the flavor of tequila, etc. etc.
I’m not nitpicking, I’m disagreeing with you :-)
However a lot of people eat food this way. Cheese, for example, has no psychoactive qualities and comes in a very large variety of flavors including ones which are unusual and offputting to some people.
I suspect 9eB1 meant that a drink should have “psychoactive properties” to gather a culture of “tasting notes” around its perceived “flavour properties” and somehow although people drink for the psychoactive properties, they believe they drink for the flavour properties.
I agree with the variations in cheese flavours that people talk about; and also bread for that matter. Also fish, smoked foods, vinegars, oils, cake...
Also worth adding is things like “coffee flavour” would not be appealing if people didn’t also like the flavour. Some people below have mentioned liking coffee icecream but not coffee.
Yes, I think he means something like that and I disagree with that. I think alcoholic drinks actually have a very diverse and interesting set of flavors that are worth exploring even without the psychoactive effect of alcohol. De gustibus, of course...
I originally thought by repeat exposure you were referring to an acclimatisation to the taste, and eventually “getting used to the bad parts” so that you can taste the more complicated parts that everyone says they like.