You can taste the beverage, and I'm not disputing that. That's the whole point, to impart the flavor profile of the wine or other beverage into the dish, usually done in a subtle way however.

And in a case of a botched process, I will agree that you might even feel the alcohol - but that is not the correct way to use it in a recipe. You should not get a nose of alcohol nor the mouth-feel. Only the flavor profile of the drink, be it nuttiness, fruit, etc. Obviously excluding recipes where there *IS* a goal to have the alcohol content.



Exactly. We've pretty much been in total agreement the whole time. Maybe just not in agreement over terms.

IMO, there are three reasons not to have any particular ingredient. Personal choice/preference, morality, medical.

And for all three of those, if we're talking about adding any kind of alcohol to food, it doesn't matter whether some or all of the actual alcohol is cooked off. So I agree, just go without.

It's like if someone is allergic to shellfish and someone else tells them to pick the shrimp out of their dish. There will always be trace amounts of anything left behind.



You would totally hate a coffee porter then.



I like coffee, and even I've had that experience before. Since you like the smell of the roast so much, I think there's probably some use of coffee somewhere that you'd enjoy, specially since such a large part of the perception of taste is olfactory.