I mean the alcohol contributes to the taste of whatever you're drinking but I feel it's the spirit that is what I'd attribute the taste to. Not sure about terminology here but you get what I mean, I'd enjoy most white rum with some ice, a glass of pine cone flavoured liquid known as gin hell no, a good vodka mmmyeaaah okay-ish, a shitty vodka nah. All can contain 40% ethanol and look basically exactly the same, they'll also have a common flavour between them but the entire taste experience will vary wildly.Come to think of it I'm not even sure if gin is flavoured with something or not but vodka and rum are just diluted ethanol distilled from different sources afaik but yea.Then getting into all other various alcoholic drinks the only thing I can say is most if not all non alcoholic versions of otherwise traditionally alcoholic beverages I've tried have not been as tasty as with alcohol so I guess it adds something quite significant in my opinion