I don't really understand people who say they hate the smell or taste of alcohol, I mean it's not like there is just one alcoholic drink or something.
There are so many different kinds of alcoholic drinks that smell/taste nothing like each other in any sense.
When you're talking about beer or something I can understand not liking it at first.
Sure, but ethanol has a taste itself too. It's like saying "I don't really understand people who say they hate the taste of sour foods. I mean it's not like there's just one sour food or something. There are so many different kids of sour foods that taste nothing like each other in any sense."
Sure, there's many different types of sour food with many different flavors, but if you don't like sour things then you're not going to like sour foods regardless of what the other flavors in the mix are. You can add a whole bunch of sugar and other strong flavors to cover it up, but in 99% of alcoholic drinks you can taste the alcohol. The exception being wine coolers.