Alcohol tastes like alcohol at its base. Which is why you don’t like it. Some drinks (ice cream drinks, fruity cocktail) manage to “hide” the alcohol taste under sugar, but no base liquor does. Different kinds of alcohol have different flavors layered over them, mostly flavors that are part of either the base ingrediants (hops, juniper berries, potatoes, wheat) or the processing (the oak barrels used), or in some cases (wine) and for some people (wine connoisseurs) the terrain in which the ingrediants were grown.
If you want to know what it “tastes” like, its best to look at the base ingredient - and then since you don’t like alcohol, assume that everything taste like “lighter fluid with a hint of whatever the base ingredient is.”
ETA: Sugar is the best way to hide the lighter fluid overtones, which is why people mix drinks with Coke, and liqueurs are sugary - which is why non drinkers will often like Baileys or Kahlua.
Red wine can taste amazingly smooth or harsh and tannic, depending on the grapes and the quality of the wine. There are so many different red wines, and they all have distinctive flavors. Some are fruity and light, some are dark and dense and some have lingering flavors ranging from spice to tobacco to leather.
White wines are usually lighter not only in taste but in alcohol content. There are sweet and dry whites, and they can have flavors anywhere from mineral to citrus to grass or to stone fruit (like peaches) or apples or pears.
Good wine tastes nothing like regular, unfermented grape juice.
Some wines are great to sip all by themselves, and some deserve to be paired with certain foods to really appreciate (both the wine and the food).
I’m almost exclusively a craft beer drinker, mainly the darker ones, but one treat I like to give myself occasionally is DiSaronno in ginger ale. I’d describe the DiSaronno as tasting somewhere between cherries and almonds.
Scotch is an acquired taste. Some people love it and some people don’t. I fall into the latter group.
A friend of mine who was a scotch drinker bought a bottle of high quality scotch. He offered me a glass. I tried it and he asked me what I thought. I told him it tasted like cobwebs.
I have yet to acquire the taste. I’ve tried some supposedly good stuff, and it didn’t do anything for me. With so many other good things to drink, I haven’t worried too much about it.
A straight shot of vodka used to be my choice back when I could drink like a fish, and I always thought that those first two minutes having downed a straight shot, lighting up your entire body like a lightning bolt from inside, was a color: electric blue. No help, I know, but if a drink was a color, vodka would be electric blue. Tequila, to me, tastes like next-day-death, which could be good or bad, lol…Actually, as far as whiskey and scotch go, there really IS a difference between the cheap stuff and the expensive stuff. The taste is ‘similar’, the effects are similar in that you get hammered fast, but I would bet even a newbie doing a taste test could tell the difference.
I’m also a non-drinker, but I tasted wine so I could cook with it. It tastes like watered down grape juice (though of course, it smells like mild rubbing alcohol). That shouldn’t be too surprising.
I’ve also tasted beer. It tasted like de-salted soy sauce to me.
Minus the stimulating/stupifying effect of alcohol, I don’t think most people would drink most alcoholic drinks.
I really wish there was a way to make drinks that weren’t alcoholic (or at least didn’t have any effects) without changing the flavor. Not necessarily for people like Yogsooth, but so we could more easily differentiate between tastes people inherently like and tastes that they just associate with good feelings and thus have grown to believe taste better.
As for me, I’ll stay ignorant because I don’t want to find out that there’s something I like, because I know me, and I will overindulge. Especially since overindulging would be a small amount with me due to my medicine and current medical problems.
In addition to what others said, the colors tend to be darker. Typical lager. A pale ale. A stout ale. There are light ales though, see below. The literal difference between the two mainly involves the type of yeast, top-fermenting for ales, bottom fermenting for lagers (and wild yeast, i.e. naturally infects beer for lambics).
The hops which are heavy in IPAs tastes like bitter flowers to me.
In the world of Scotch whisky, it is. Peat is plant matter (not dirt). In the Highlands they would use it for fuel and decided to use it to make Scotch. So the smoke smell is from peat.
I’ve always likened Jack Daniel’s to having the aftertaste of acorns or some other nut-type seed.
I don’t think there is much bashing. However, I have never heard of the term “blonde” to refer to a lager, especially since they tend to be paler. I have heard of blonde ales. Ales certainly have more variety in color and taste. There are still some good lagers which are very dark.
Amaretto tastes “like” almonds, and I believe DiSaronno is considered a sweeter brand. However, what you’re often really tasting is apricot pit in many brands. DiSaronno is one of these.
This concept occurred to me many times while reading these responses. It really, really matters who made the liquor (or wine, but I am talking more about liquor here) and how it was made. My brother always bought rotgut vodka because he is very cheap. While on a trip together, he tried some of my Grey Goose vodka. He had a hard time believing it was vodka (on ice, no mixer) (of course). I noticed that vodka was not on your list, though.
In my vast drinking experience, I have found that there are significant taste differences among the same type of liquor depending on the quality (price).
Yeah, but I also wouldn’t but Grey Goose for mixing all the time. And I buy cheap whiskey (Kessler, $10-$11 per 1.75 mL) for mixing with coke because it doesn’t make a huge difference, and I wouldn’t want to mix the Buffalo Trace.
A decent rule of thumb I’ve heard, especially with restaurant wine is: don’t but the cheapest one, but the next cheapest might be ok. The price vs. quality curve is logarithmic. A $25 bottle of wine could be 3x as good as a $5 bottle of wine, but a $50 bottle might only be 1.25x as good as the $25 bottle. A $1000 won’t be 100x better than any of them, and is mostly a Veblen good. And of course, cheap wine might be good in Sangria, just like cooking wine is good to make food but gross to drink.
Wine (other than sangria) is bitter due to the consumption of the sugar into alcohol. Think of the flavor of grape seeds.
Most of your non-distilled alcohols taste like a little like something rotten, because, well, they are. Distilled alcohols are more like some sort of antiseptic.
I suspect most of the appeal of the flavors is positive reinforcement of flavors associated with a buzz. So one enjoys the flavor of alcoholic beverages an a slightly different way than one enjoys the flavor of a piece of fruit or a stick of gum.
There is a Sangria soft drink that, while lacking the essential quality of the wine version, comes closer than a straight fruit punch.
There are also a lot of rum-flavored candies, not all made with alcohol (or usually with so little that unless you object to it outright you can try it). While many wintertime cakes (like plum pudding or fruitcake) are often soaked in rum or brandy, it would probably be too strong if you don’t like alcohol, and mixed with other flavors to boot.
It means they like it, that’s all. Why do you like some of the things you like to eat/drink? Because they taste good.
BigT, what about O’Douls?
I really shouldn’t drink, since I’m on my meds, but a few don’t really have much of an effect on me – other than to get a little tipsy. It’s caffeine that makes me sick.
But I’m one of those weirdos who actually LIKES the taste of the alcohol.
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Rum**: Made from fermented and distilled molasses, so it is somewhat reminiscent of molasses. Some have significant wood flavors (vanilla-ish) from barrel aging.
Whiskey: Made from fermented and distilled grain. Generally tastes like the grain somewhat, along with the barrels it’s aged in. Bourbon: Whiskey made predominantly from corn and aged in new charred oak barrels. Very sweet, oaky and kind of vanilla-ish. Scotch: Whiskey primarily made from malted barley that in some cases was dried over a peat fire, giving it some definite smoky overtones. Usually not overly woody tasting, since it’s aged in used barrels of various kinds.
Beer in general tastes a lot like bread with alcohol and hops. Some types have pronounced hop flavors and aromas (kind of herbal tasting). Light or dark doesn’t have to do with ale or lager; a Dunkel is pretty damn dark and is a lager, and a Belgian Tripel is typically pretty light in color yet is about as much of as an ale as beers get. Darker beers tend to have more roasted flavors- the malt’s roasted to get the color, so it comes through in the beer.
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Lager**: Beer that’s fermented cold and aged cold. Generally speaking, lagers are supposed to showcase the malt and hops used in the recipe. The taste can be described as “cleaner” than a typical ale.
Ale: Beer that’s fermented relatively warm, and that yeast flavors play a major part in defining the flavor of the beer. Usually more complex with esters (think banana flavor or green apple), phenolics and fusel alcohols having a major role.
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Sake**: Kind of hard to describe- alcoholic, winey, but not wine.
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Brandy**: Fermented grapes (wine) that’s subsequently distilled and aged in wood barrels. Kind of like a whiskey, only with grapey/fruit flavors instead of grain/bread flavors.
Cognac: Simply a particular sort of brandy distilled and aged in the Cognac region of France. Absinthe: Kind of licorice-ey. Strong as hell- it’s 170 proof, IIRC. Gin: Typically like juniper berries (kind of evergreenish) and other botanical ingredients, usu. citrus and coriander among others. Red Wine: Like dry red grape juice; with tannins and a lot of the red grape flavors. Some are fairly woody- the same wood flavors as whiskey, but paired with wine flavors. White Wine: Like dry grape juice without so much tannin and often more aromatic. Sometimes aged in wood as well, which gives Chardonnay an almost buttery taste.
Sangria: Like wine mixed with fruit juices and/or soda. Usually much more refreshing and sweet than straight-up wine. It’s good stuff!
As I have already grumbled: There is no such thing as scotch and it’s outright idiotic to lump all Scottish whiskies together as if they are similar in taste. They aren’t.
Absinthe is usually anywhere from 100-150 proof. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one as strong as 170. Pernot Ricard Absinthe, the quintessential one, is 138 proof. Still strong as hell, though. It is also traditionally drunk diluted with water, in dilutions ranging from 3:1 to 6:1 water:absinthe.
Oh, come now. There is such a thing as “Scotch.” It is short for “Scotch whisky” or “Whiskey produced in Scotland.” It’s as silly as a Buffalonian telling me there’s no such thing as “Buffalo wings” that they’re just “wings.”
Now, as to the second part, of course I wouldn’t lump them all together. There is a world of difference between something an Islay Malt like Ardbeg and a Speyside malt like The Macallan. But they’re all types of Scotch whisky, or “Scotch,” just like rye and bourbon are all types of “American whiskey,” even though they taste quite different. Even within the bourbons you have quite a bit of variation depending on what grain bills are being used. A Bulleit bourbon tastes quite different than a Maker’s Mark, yet they are all “bourbons” and then “American whiskeys.”
