"all with their different nuances in how they alter mood and thinking patterns"
This is honestly not true unless you are including absinthe. Ethanol is the only active ingredient and it has one of the most well understood dose-response curves and one of the most heavily studied effects. The rest is all in your head.
There just isn't that much to the alcohol, it's very one note, moreso than any psychedelic, moreso than even smoking (where dose control significantly varies the effects) or even cannabis which is also relatively one note.
I am quite certain that if you talked to a variety of people who like to drink, they will
tell you that tequila hits different than a single barrel rye whiskey or champagne, for example. And it's more than just the amount of sugar. There are amounts of hints of various aromas in different liquor and these small differences do quite a bit in the brain, which you did propose yourself when you said
> The rest is all in your head.
Brains are incredible. The "sensitivity and specificity" of receptors goes way beyond what we understand for now, both hardware and software-wise, and that is true on the level of synapses as well as within any metabolism anywhere in their chains in the body and in how they work together to achieve their own objectives, as well as the ones they share.
Take any approach within the range of broken - buggy - normal - amplified and apply it to any sphere of single and networked mechanism. Wear and tear and age change all this even further and never forget that we are still evolving, over very long time spans in very small changes.
It's an insane ride from bio-chemistry to character in different states of mind and body/brain and that ride morphs quite a bit based on anything we consume via active and passive channels.
And that's just part of the story as it evolves in my head.
Hops in beer have a mildly sedative effect. Sugar, caffeine, taurin in mix drinks cause more alertness and euphoria. There really is more to drinks than just the amount of ethanol.
This is honestly not true unless you are including absinthe. Ethanol is the only active ingredient and it has one of the most well understood dose-response curves and one of the most heavily studied effects. The rest is all in your head.
There just isn't that much to the alcohol, it's very one note, moreso than any psychedelic, moreso than even smoking (where dose control significantly varies the effects) or even cannabis which is also relatively one note.