There's a lot of people who do drink for the taste, it might sound hard to believe if all you've ever tasted is white cider and cheap lager, but it's true.
Honestly for me a good pint of cider or decent beer is the best taste in the world, bar maybe mango juice, which for me is like an orgasm in the mouth, but decent mango juice is hard to find so really of all the readily available drinks, good beer and cider are the better tasting.
Personally I love drinking on my own, it's probably cause I grew up in a place where it's not socially acceptable to not have wine with dinner(probably it's just my parents who were borderline alcoholics and gave me a very bad example since an early age), it has never really crossed my mind to have my evening meal without some type of alcohol, it feels weird. I can have Chinese or Japanese food while drinking green tea and fast food with coke, but everything else I pretty much have to have drink with.
