Many years ago when I was a grad student doing fieldwork in Madagascar, we were looking for some after-hours beverages. Tequila was super duper expensive, but the “tequila-flavored spirits” were super cheap. It turns out this was for a very good reason – they smelled like baby wipes, and the flavor wasn’t much better. I don’t think we finished the bottle, which is saying something for grad students.
I did too until after I started homebrewing and started reading about how different stuff was made … wine vs beer vs sake vs cider vs whatnot…
I’ll probably take a bashing for this: With the exception of the British version, I do not like India Pale Ales. I don’t like bitter beers; I never did. I tried all the new IPAs that came out (including NEIPA) and realized I also don’t like overly-hoppy beers.
I like beer with a good malt backbone, with a complexity of malts (hence the British IPA). Most of the ales I make are British or Scottish.
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You’ll get no bashing from me. I’ve never understood the obsession with IPAs.
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Peanut butter beer, whiskey or in any type of booze! I like peanut butter, I like beer, I like whiskey…just don’t combine them that is just gross (in my humble opinion 
)!
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+1 on Malort being one of the most vile spirits I have ever tasted! Tastes like burn hair and nail polish remover.
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I’ve never understood the obsession with British beers. But tastes vary.
The fun part of Malort is that it’s a shared experience.
Smells like grapefruit but tastes like bug spray to me.
I’ll add that I never understood the obsession with Euro lagers, though I certainly wouldn’t put them in the “one was too many” category, like I would a summer “shandy”.
And I love IPA’s and British beers. 
IPAs are in the category of beers I don’t actively seek out, with a couple of exceptions such as SN Celebration. I would add to that category the Euro lagers mentioned by @megary. I don’t “get” sours at all. But British beers… at least bitters and milds… yum.
Easily the worst “potent potable” I’ve ever poted was a high class Chinese Baijiu. (it’s a white spirit distilled from rice, sorghum and a mix of other stuff).
I’ve had Malort and while Malort is not the most pleasant thing to drink (I didn’t think it was that bad but I was also prepped for it), Malort is sweet mountain water compared to the Baijiu I tried. It tasted like a combination of kerosene, burnt hair, a tire fire and a snake’s ■■■■.
But what really cemented it as the worst thing I’ve ever drunk was that I burped two days later and the full tasting experience came racing back.
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A good shandy (or radler) is a thing of beauty. I went to a brewery once in Michigan who mixed their shandies to order from house-made lemonade. Bright and refreshing.
A bad shandy is like bad “alcopop” hard lemonade. Sugary sadness in a bottle.
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That’s the way it should be. I learned a lot about shandy while touring with British bands. For instance, what they call lemonade is what we’d call 7 Up.
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i think thats 3 or 4 for baijiu, it really is that bad.
re: your high class one - there is “good” chinese alcohols, but at least as far as ive experienced there is a concept in chinese alcohol of a type sort of called “soup” or umami focused, i cant remember the exact word alcohol, and its a taste profile that is sort of out of what other countries expect of an alcohol in that it focuses on umami/savory flavours as an objective. meaning, i don’t think chinese alcohol producers who intend to make a good product are incompetent at all, but it is very jarring for an unfamiliar palate. and in my personal experience with a small amount of the soup style one, its just not pleasant. with the basic-grade/cheap baijiu, it is hyper industrial perhaps intentionally in-your-face BLAAHHH to demonstrate its “strength” and horrible, and with the flower/perfume baijiu its like the former but with a liberal dosage of artificial rose grandma perfume added. ive had bad and very cheap soju and rice wine and they are nothing compared to how bad chinese booze can be.
re: radlers/shandys, i remember where i lived once they had some decent cheap german brewery’s 2.5% half lemonade, half beer shandy and it was so balanced, so cheap and so good for the summer they had it on. changed my mind on that stuff. a little sweet, lemony, a little sour, balanced with beer.
I’m brand new here and will probably make a few enemies for saying this…
I HATED Stella Artois 
it tasted like skunk pee to me…I’m sorry folks.
I adore wheat beer! I’ll take Sam Adam’s Cherry Wheat, Blue Moon, Shocktop or the like ANY DAY…hell I’ll even take Busch but NEVER AGAIN will I drink SA 
Sounds like you had a bad bottle. While I don’t consider Stella a great beer, I’ve never had one that was flawed like that.
Ones I dislike. . Gin, Horrid stuff. Cant stand it. Also when I was in Germany something called rocktapus ( most likely spelled wrong ), tasted like a rancid rum to me. sharp and digusting. Definitly not on my my list’ Also dont like American bourbons or whiskeys. I must say no to southern comfort and jack daniels etc. You can also add sake to this list. no thank you.
What I like? Recently found an affection for Japanese scotch whiskey. Tasted a good blend, now i’m sold. Also like other areas of scotch, currently exploring ones distilled from Scotland. I prefer more mellow thinner ones with fruity back flavors. However, I am now exploring heavier deep ones with peat malting. Scotch is all about complexity and balancing back flavors. Because of the Japanese and Scottish endevours I have started collecting various full bottles of liquor as a hobby now. . . I like white Russians. I like a good vodka, detest, yes I absolutly dislike a bad one (rubbing alchohol) currently drinking Reyka, Iike it. I like Lucid absinthe when done with sugar and water.
As far as beer goes, I dislike fruity ones with added fruit. Wont touch the stuff. You can add American light beers to that list. Actually all American major manufacturer beers, especially if in a can. The only one I will touch and a almost never do is regular budweiser in a bottle, And that only for nastalgia reasons. I dont drink beer from a can, Any beer from a can.
As far as my beer likes go. Its seasonal. . . In the winter I like extreamly dark, thick and heavy brewskies, even at room temperature. (picked that up from germany) Rasputin, porters, and dark stouts that are not chocklaty, please keep the chocolate out. I like them bourbon or wiskey barrel aged if possible. Bitter, muddy. and deep. Thats the way.
In the summer I change my taste entirely to a refrigerated heffe, corona or shandy. Coronas being laced with a squirt of lemon or lime. Shandies being a difficult choice as some are good and some are horrid. a bad attempt at trying to make a thin beer taste like lemons are the horrid ones. The current major name brand American brewers i feel dont do well with shandies, wont drink those, However I do like Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy for some reason. I like those.
Any season witnter or summer I like a good original monestary brew or possibly a Nocterium . but they get pricy so i hardly ever endevour.
In the end, If I had a bottle of gin however, You could have it. take it, please. arrgh , man I hate that stuff. Like drinking pine sol.
Gin is my enemy.
I think it was Mickeys that had that whole skunk thing for me, Something about green bottles.
Cheap gin is best reserved for degreasing engines, but I love a good gin. Really, anything strongly botanical … gin, chartreuse, strega …
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Homebrew flavor