This article is part of The Belief Bucket series, where we examine ten common beliefs about alcohol.
- Introduction: What is the Belief Bucket?
- Belief #1 – Relaxation (Alcohol helps me relax)
- Belief #2 – Happiness (Alcohol makes me happy)
- Belief #3 – Reward (Alcohol is my reward)
- Belief #4 – The Rosy Effect (Remembering only the good times)
- Belief #5 – Taste (Alcohol tastes amazing) ← you’re here
- Belief #6 – Social Ally (Alcohol helps me socially)
- Belief #7 – Sleep (Alcohol helps me sleep)
- Belief #8 – Moderate Drinking (Our obsession)
- Belief #9 – Boredom (Alcohol solves boredom)
- Belief #10 – The Buzz (Alcohol feels amazing)
Many of us said taste was a big reason we drank.
“I genuinely love the taste.”
And maybe we did like it. We may have known exactly which wine we preferred, how cold the beer should be or how we wanted a spirit poured.
So nobody needs to tell us that every alcoholic drink tasted horrible. That probably wouldn’t be true.
But here’s a fair question: Would we still choose exactly the same drink if it tasted the same and had no effect at all?
There would be no buzz, no change in feeling and no relief afterwards. We’d only be drinking it for the flavour.
The answer might tell us how much of it was really about taste.
Most of us had to get used to the taste
Think back to the first few times we drank.
Beer may have tasted bitter. Wine could have seemed sharp. Spirits burned.
We might have pulled a face, mixed alcohol with something sweet or drank it quickly so we didn’t taste it as much. We kept drinking it because of how it made us feel afterwards.
Over time, the taste became familiar. Some of us started enjoying it. Others just stopped noticing the parts we once disliked.
That’s why people call it an acquired taste. We had to learn to like it.
Taste and effect became tied together
We usually had that first sip after work, during a celebration, over dinner or while we were away. And then we started feeling different.
And after a while, that first taste could make us think, “Here it comes.” We knew the relief or buzz was on its way.
Sometimes we felt better before the buzz had even started. The pop of the bottle, the pour, the glass and the first sip were all part of the routine. So when we said we missed the taste, we might have been missing what we expected to happen next as well.
Would we want the same taste with no effect?
Imagine our usual drink tasted exactly the same, but we knew it wouldn’t change how we felt.
Would we still pour the same amount? Would we drink it at the same speed? Would we keep topping it up through the night?
Maybe we’d say yes, and maybe we really would.
But if the drink suddenly seems much less interesting without the effect, maybe we wanted more than the taste. We wanted the change in feeling as well.
How we drank tells us a lot
When we drink something because we like the flavour, we usually want to taste it.
But with alcohol, we often drank differently. We drank quickly, poured more or chose something stronger because we wanted it to work faster.
We might have started with the drink we claimed to love and then moved on to whatever was available.
Other times, we barely noticed the taste after the first few drinks. We were already thinking about the next one.
We may have liked the taste. The effect was still a big part of it.
The setting helped the drink taste better
A cold drink can feel perfect when we’re on holiday, having dinner or sitting with people we like. But we may be enjoying the setting as much as the drink.
We’re away from work, the food is good, everyone’s relaxed and we’re already enjoying ourselves. And because alcohol was there as well, we could easily give the drink credit for how good the whole thing felt. That’s also why our good drinking memories can make a particular drink seem better than it was.
We could have enjoyed that same moment with something else in our glass.
What if we really did like it?
Maybe taste really was part of it. We don’t need to argue with that.
The thing is, liking the taste doesn’t mean everything that came with it was worth it.
Was that taste worth the poor sleep, anxiety, lost time, arguments or days spent feeling terrible?
So picture the same taste with no effect. Does it still seem as important?
Maybe we really did like the drink. But if it had no effect, would we have kept going back to it in the same way?
And the next belief is “Alcohol helps me socially”.
— Brent
Next in the series: Belief #6 – Social Ally (Alcohol helps me socially) →