It was purely succumbing to peer pressure. Not something I'm particularly proud of, nor something I would recommend. If you don't like alcohol, and you don't feel like that's holding you back socially, then by all means don't drink. If you don't feel like you're missing out on anything, then you aren't. That's my whole point: you should ignore what other people think and just decide for yourself what you like, even if (maybe especially if) what you like is not to start drinking in the first place.

> The very idea of forcing myself to "acquire the taste" for alcohol seems distasteful in itself.

The logic of any acquired taste is simple:

It takes a finite amount of effort to acquire the taste.

In return, you get satisfaction for the acquired taste that is only bound by the length of your life. The sooner you acquire the taste, the longer you get to amortize the value.

I've taught myself to enjoy damn near every food and drink out there and I am immensely glad that I have—I now inhabit a world filled with delights.

> I've taught myself to enjoy damn near every food and drink out there and I am immensely glad that I have—I now inhabit a world filled with delights.

Well yeah, when you have drugs to "teach" your brain how to enjoy something (i.e. "this flavor = feel goods"), it's not that hard. I always figure that having to aqcuire the taste of something via drugs is a warning sign that said thing is probably not good for your body. Take tobacco connoisseurs for example.

I don't doubt that they can taste and enjoy lots of "woody" and "grassy" flavors in their smoke, but to someone like me without the acquired taste, it smells foul and acrid, and my brain is warning me to stay away.

Who said anything about having to use drugs to acquire a taste?

Are there any acquired tastes that don't require some form of drug usage (alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, etc.)?

Ummmm... Plenty. Wikipedia has many examples

>An acquired taste often refers to an appreciation for a food or beverage that is unlikely to be enjoyed by a person who has not had substantial exposure to it, usually because of some unfamiliar aspect of the food or beverage, including a strong or strange odor (e.g. stinky tofu, Gefilte fish, durian, hákarl, black salt, nattō, stinking toe, asafoetida, surströmming, or certain types of cheese), taste (such as alcoholic beverages, vegemite/marmite, bitter teas, salty liquorice, malt bread, unsweetened chocolate or garnatálg), or appearance.

Lots of people don't naturally like: avocados, olives, kombucha, stinky cheeses, offal, sushi, etc.

Even with coffee and tea, the acquisition works just as well if you drink decaf. (I only have one cup of caffeinated beverage a day, but I still occasionally enjoy a cup of decaf in the afternoons.)

Macedonian trad/jazz fusion music. Dadaist art. Sauna (the Finnish way).

There's nothing wrong with Esma Redzepova.

Organ meats

You don't drink wine for the alcohol, you drink it for the flavor. It's just like tea; no one drinks a nice cup of Earl Grey with Bourgamot for the caffeine. If you want to get liquored up, there's far cheaper and more efficient ways to do it than wine, and if you want caffeine, there's faster and more effective ways of getting that too that don't require carefully heating water and steeping a teabag.

A lot of people do like the effect of the alcohol, but it's a side-effect, not the main purpose of drinking wine. Personally, it seems to have no effect on me, but I also don't drink very much at a time.

Forcing yourself to "acquire the taste" for wine is no different than forcing yourself to "acquire the taste" for expensive, fine cheeses, or doing the same for fine cuts of meat instead of eating a McDonald's burger.

> You don't drink wine for the alcohol, you drink it for the flavor.

I really wish that synthehol (of Star Trek fame) were a thing. I was at a champagne tasting of 60+ wines from the best producers (Krug and Roederer come to mind), and made it through 25 or so, spitting each one, and was still terribly buzzed.

If there were a way to enjoy the taste without the effects I would be all for it.

>I was at a champagne tasting of 60+ wines from the best producers (Krug and Roederer come to mind), and made it through 25 or so, spitting each one, and was still terribly buzzed.

I've never actually had that feeling, and always wondered what this "buzz" effect is. I've been to wine tastings, drank multiple glasses at once, etc., and never felt a thing.

It's just learning to appreciate something. Like how most people have to learn to appreciate coffee, olives, blue cheese and so on

no one(maybe some) likes alcohol the first time. one must acquire a taste for it. that doesn't mean it's not worth it. scotch was so disgusting to me the first time i had it and now it's one of the great pleasures in my life.

Adding to this - half of developing a taste for scotch is developing the skill of tasting scotch. Which is to say, take smaller sips. I've personally found that 80% or so of people who say they don't like scotch will enjoy a good scotch if they can be convinced to take a sufficiently small sip. Agreed, one of the great pleasures in life!

I've introduced some people to craft beer as their first alcohol, and they've tended to seriously enjoy it when given a few options and allowed to taste and choose. Of course, if you're given a house vodka and coke or a bottle of Whatever Light as your first alcohol, you're not going to like it.