Abstract

The taste of alcohol is generally not appreciated by children and young adolescents. Often it takes several years for young people to get used to drink alcohol, and this process is normally accompanied by increasing appreciation of the alcohol taste. Children like sweet taste starting at birth and after adolescence the preference of sweetness decreases slightly. The appreciation of bitter taste usually increases with age. Aversion to alcohol taste at young age seems to be suppressed when alcohol is consumed in combination with sweet and/or high caloric products such as milk. Complete masking of the alcohol taste does not occur, but it is difficult for inexperienced drinkers to estimate how much alcohol the drink contains.
Sweet taste stimulates a reward response in the brain. As a result of adding sweeteners, such as sugars, to alcohol products, brain reward stimulation will be the result. It is likely that this sweet stimulus reward is the main reason for teenagers to consume sweetened low alcohol drinks, suppressing the aversion towards the taste of alcohol. Non-sweetened drinks with the same alcohol percentage are consumed less. In particular girls consume significantly less unsweetened alcohol drinks than sweetened drinks. 'Novely seeking" which often is stronger amongst boys than among girls, normally is an important driving force to start alcohol consumption. In addition 'nipping' is often the onset of alcohol consumption. Adding sweeteners to alcohol drinks may expand the 'nipping' process and may reduce the importance of novelty seeking. Alcopops and other sweetened low alcohol drinks have tastes which are recognized by children and young teenagers, thereby facilitating the consumption of alcohol. Furthermore it is shown in animal studies that the rewards for sweet and for alcohol in the brain may interact leading to easier adoption and more intense alcohol consumption . Although, to the best of our knowledge, no such information is available for humans, it may implicate that adding sweeteners to alcoholic drinks is more than only manipulating the taste of the drinks.