Currently a student in my last year, I get drunk 2 or 3 nights a week, sometimes higher and sometimes lower. I usually don’t have any alcohol unless I’ve got night plans and am trying to get buzzed/drunk—a single beer or glass of wine to unwind is very rare for me. My relationship to alcohol is pretty much completely social. When everyone has lower inhibitions, the potential for novel shared experiences is much higher and conversation flows much more easily. My friend groups in college have similarly been partial to alcohol—I started a social fraternity, and most of the people I spend time with outside of class have come from extensions of that network. I don’t think I can name a single person in my social friend group (as opposed to my engineering classmate groups) that doesn’t drink.
I’m not worried about addiction, because over the summers when I’m not around my frequently-drinking friends I don’t have an impetus to drink and won’t buy any booze unless it’s wine to cook with. I also have SNPs that put me at lower-risk for alcohol dependency, but I don’t weigh that as heavily as observing my patterns of behavior.
As for taste, pure alcohol doesn’t really have a taste (at least, it didn’t when I tried a shot of 95% alcohol). The 95% alcohol didn’t burn at all (it just felt very very dry and warm), but that was oddly uncharacteristic. I usually feel the alcohol burn when I take shots, but chasing them counters that. Mixed drinks, wine, and beer taste good on their own and while I can tell there is alcohol in the drink, in a good drink it fades into the background behind the other flavors. Shots of hard alcohol can taste good, but I suspect this is more because of the association these flavors have with fun experiences than the actual taste. For reference, I have an unrestricted food pallet, barring a few things like tripe.
Currently a student in my last year, I get drunk 2 or 3 nights a week, sometimes higher and sometimes lower. I usually don’t have any alcohol unless I’ve got night plans and am trying to get buzzed/drunk—a single beer or glass of wine to unwind is very rare for me. My relationship to alcohol is pretty much completely social. When everyone has lower inhibitions, the potential for novel shared experiences is much higher and conversation flows much more easily. My friend groups in college have similarly been partial to alcohol—I started a social fraternity, and most of the people I spend time with outside of class have come from extensions of that network. I don’t think I can name a single person in my social friend group (as opposed to my engineering classmate groups) that doesn’t drink.
I’m not worried about addiction, because over the summers when I’m not around my frequently-drinking friends I don’t have an impetus to drink and won’t buy any booze unless it’s wine to cook with. I also have SNPs that put me at lower-risk for alcohol dependency, but I don’t weigh that as heavily as observing my patterns of behavior.
As for taste, pure alcohol doesn’t really have a taste (at least, it didn’t when I tried a shot of 95% alcohol). The 95% alcohol didn’t burn at all (it just felt very very dry and warm), but that was oddly uncharacteristic. I usually feel the alcohol burn when I take shots, but chasing them counters that. Mixed drinks, wine, and beer taste good on their own and while I can tell there is alcohol in the drink, in a good drink it fades into the background behind the other flavors. Shots of hard alcohol can taste good, but I suspect this is more because of the association these flavors have with fun experiences than the actual taste. For reference, I have an unrestricted food pallet, barring a few things like tripe.