That is like asking what does food taste like, as there are many different types which all taste different. Beer doesn't taste like wine, vodka doesn't taste like brandy etc.

Firewater.

The drink you mix it with.

That depends on what type of alcohol. Let's go type by type. Beer: Beer is made my fermenting malted barley with water and hops. The more barley used, the sweeter the beer. The more hops used, the more bitter the beer. If drinking BMC (budweiser, miller, or coors) it's going to be watery, grainy, and have a little bite. Wine: Wine tastes VERY different depending on the grape used to make it. A red wine like Cabernet is going to be peppery, oaky, and black licoricey. A white wine like sauvignon blanc is going to grassy and taste a little like tropical fruits mixed with alcohol. Hard Alcohol: tastes like alcohol! Burns, and is very unpleasant straight. What you need to know is vodka is made to have no flavor and no aroma, good in mixed drinks if you do not like the flavor of alcohol. Whiskey is basically made by distilling (boiling the alcohol off) the same stuff beer is made from and then aging it in charred oak barrels. So it has the malted graininess of beer, but is also smokey and oaky and (if you buy a good whiskey)has notes of vanilla and caramel. Brandy is same as whiskey but with Wine instead of beer. Gin is like vodka but with juniper berries so it has a VERY distinct flavor and aroma (some say like pine trees). Basically, the taste of alcohol is awful. It's is basically like drinking poison. Any beverage made with alcohol is made with the idea of masking the taste of alcohol with other flavors. So alcohol tastes terrible, but some of the beverages created by making the alcohol are actually quite interesting and complex.

fire water