Over the past couple of years, my wife has cut out alcohol almost completely. Once in a while she’ll ask me for a glass of wine, and often not even finish that, and that’s about it. I, too, have cut down from an average of two drinks a day, or maybe a bit more, to one, on account of a medication I’m taking, and I’ve been pretty good about keeping that regimen.
We now often find that when we go to restaurants we formerly thought excellent, they’re not! The meat’s tough or the vegetables dry. The fish is overdone (I’ve learned never to order any thing the menu lists as “blackened”). I can only surmise that that extra glass of wine or cocktail made us more foregiving of culinary shortcomings. Perhaps my taste was dulled by the alcohol, or else I was operating under a false sense of euphoria that made the food seem better than it really was.
What I’d like to know now is if others who have reduced their alcohol intake have noticed a similar phenomenon.
I guess not spending all that money on the extra drinks I should consider going to better restaurants. 
