ACQUIRED TASTES – Part 3 of 4

The acquired taste principle also applies to beer. I will readily admit that at first sip, I thought for sure I’d just had a dose of dog’s ass. Like a little girl fleeing a rabid Doberman, I went running and screaming back to wine coolers. Of course, that was okay in the late 80’s, because Bruce Willis had assured me Seagram’s Golden Wine Coolers were the tits. (By the way, if you’ve never had wine coolers, there’s no acquired taste. Its fizzy, fermented Kool-Aid. And, yes – I eventually discovered wine coolers were about as masculine as ordering a Shirley Temple, while singing along to High School Musical 3).

However, peer pressure, economics, and supply and demand were eventually persuasion enough to bring me home to beer. Don’t credit flavor for the transition. I acquired the taste. They say repetition is the key to learning. My educational experience was forcing down a lot of random keg beer, because that’s what was available. The underage crowd doesn’t have the option of pulling up a stool between Cliff and Norm. If you wanted to get your drunk on (which is a primary goal for many college students), you just had to figure it out. Hell, I knew my palate was totally brainwashed when I started settling for whatever case they priced $5.99 – Busch, Stroh’s, or any beer branded with the term Ice (higher alcohol content).

Okay, so they don't know your name. But, it's fun to say you've been.

Perhaps if coffee were sold by the keg and caffeine gave me the illusion of having a chance with the ladies, I would have strapped a coffee keg on my back, while sitting for hours listening to another rousing rendition of Smelly Cat, and trying to maintain eye contact with Jennifer Anniston. But, that’s not what coffee is about. It’s not the product that’s important. It’s the effect. If raw pork made you feel good, you might start expanding your horizons to licking pigs. After a great deal of repetition, I finally thought – huh, beer isn’t ass. Sure, you might have to stare into a lot of porcelain and become susceptible to a lot of compromising behavior along the way, but eventually you do acquire that taste.