I’m aware that it is-like I said, it’s like Chuck E. Cheez for grown-ups.
They are made for people who got their start raiding the medicine cabinet instead of the liquor cabinet. “If you liked Robitussin you’ll love our Cherrytini!”
I… see. Water is to strong for you. You have to cut it with scotch.
OTOH, it would be easier to argue that dry cocktails are the exception. Americans have had a sweet tooth since way before the baby boom. Granted, the candy-tinis are a recent development, but most of the old drinks have sugar in them. Hell, jello shots date back to the mid-1800s.
Well… I don’t recall any animatronics. 
Seriously though, these drinks won’t be on the menu long if they don’t sell. If they’ve been there a while, people are drinking them. I know plenty of people who just don’t like beer, or wine, or sipping a whiskey. It doesn’t make them bad people. Honest.
A definite sign of the end times! I was a 12 year old kid watching M.A.S.H., my parents didn’t drink gin, and I knew what “dry” meant in that context.
And this makes me ill! 
I’ll take any one of those drinks from the OP, please. You buying? Even better.
Some of us don’t particularly like the taste of alcohol. It’s similar to coffee. Some of you drink it black. Some of us like a little coffee with our cream and sugar.
Guin, sorry, but I find it funny that you like Baileys or a mudslide but find these drinks worth dissing.
For the record - I’ll drink martini’s (real ones with gin, even), burbon over ice, single malt scotch, wine (red please), cosmopolitians, margaritas, whiskey cokes, Bailey’s, ice cream drinks, and those candy drinks - depends on what I’m in the mood for (cosmos and red wine are default). I personally think ice cream drinks are funny - you get fat before you get drunk - but sometimes you want ice cream and when you are sitting on a beach…
I have learned that there is a significant difference in my enjoyment of “traditional” drinks when you are using high end liquor. When you go cheap - the sweet hides the lighter fluid taste. Since these drinks often appeal to “lets get drunk cheap” there is a rationale for the sweet.
Sometimes you want dessert. Sometimes you want a steak. Some people eat nothing but dessert, some people don’t have a sweet tooth.
Yeah, I think your palate develops as you get older (for most people) and Twinkies stop being the food of your dreams (and the liquid equivalent of Twinkies lose some of their appeal), but as long as the person drinking it is legal and the bar is carding - what the hell.
Completely agreed on everything.
How is a mudslide or a pink squirrel (heh, I always loved the name of that one) less candy-like than the Dave & Busters drinks?
I love drinks like those when I’m in the mood for them. Other times I’ll get a gin and tonic. Other times I’ll get some straight kirschwasser and sip that. It’s not a character defect to have a silly girly drink.
(Now, for a sweet drink that will really get you hammered: 1 shot vodka, 1 shot chambourd and 1 shot grand marnier/triple sec. It tastes like Hawaiian Punch and hits you like a hammer)
Of course it doesn’t make them bad people, nor do I dispute that they wouldn’t sell.
I just find them a little TOO sweet. Like Sweet Tarts. I like things rich and creamy and thick. I like my coffee sweet too, but I like it strong and rich. Not sweet and candy-like.
Yeah, like I said, I’m a hypocrite. I just don’t know WHO comes up with these things.
(Hmmm…I wonder if I could manufactor a sort of candy like Pop-Rocks, only with booze. I bet I’d make a fortune!)
a) martini = gin. Stop diluting the word.
b) Some of those “girlie” drinks can be pretty volatile, when mixed by the right bartender. This bar in SF- Trad’r Sam- has a whole list of these specialties, and they can be quite impressive in both taste and proof. To each his own, of course, but I don’t think it’s prudent to decree a unilateral disdain for fruity drinks.
No, you didn’t.
Recipe for the world’s driest martini.
Fill chilled martini glass with gin.
Put one drop of vermouth in the room humidifier.
Enjoy.
I’ve always heard it as: Add gin while looking at bottle of vermouth. Garnish. Enjoy.
In the Netherlands, the past eight years have seen the introduction and the problematically increasing popularity of “Breezers”. Breezers are premade sweet alcoholic drinks like the ones described in the OP. They have about 10 % alcohol content, come in cans and every supermarket sells them.
Dutch law forbids that youngsters under 16 buy any alcohol, including breezers. But creative teenagers find ways around that law in the Netherlands the same as they do anywhere else.
The main problem seems to be that such alcoholic lemonade creates a whole new group of problematic drinkers: young girls. Dutch papers and magazines lately have called out for a ban on Breezer-like drinks.
Here’s an (English) you-tube documentary on " The Breezer Generation.
Sweet drinks like that give me a headache, and drinks with cream turn my stomach. When it comes to hard liquor, I prefer a gin and tonic when it’s warm out and a neat bourbon in the colder seasons.
I think that most people who order those drinks are women who don’t drink hard liquor often. Not only for the flavor, but because they combine the naughtiness of alcohol with the naughtiness of desserts. In a room full of women, odds are pretty good that at least a few of them are on some kind of diet. These drinks provide a way to really break that deprivation, if that’s what you’re subconsciously looking for.
I’d be more than happy to be your taste-tester, if you need one. 
Already done (well, sort of) thanks to the Ferran Adria fanbois. Do a search for “molecular mixology”.
At home I store my olives in a jar of vermouth. You can buy them that way, but it’s more cost effective to make your own. A couple of olives is all the vermouth you need.
I thought it was drinking gin while looking at a picture of Antonio Benedetto Carpano, the inventor of vermouth.