What Gives Us Our Taste?

[Starscream]

Originally Posted by Snake Hips

This is kind of an odd question, and a little out there, but I hope to start an interesting discussion. What gives us the taste that we do? By that, I mean what we choose. We are "modern" in palate. We smoke a variety of cigars from many different brands and countries in search of complexity and particular profiles as well as construction and value. This is tied to other things as well, like alcohol. We sample different beers of a huge variety of styles from several countries searching again for complexity and superiority in profile. Beers, rums, whisk[e]ys, wines...but why? Why were our fathers insistent on one thing - the local beer and "his" cigar brand? Our dads smoked box after box of one cigar, King Edwards, White Owls or whatever. Our dads drank case after case of shitty local beer (Olympia, Lone Star, Old Style, Stroh's, Schaefer, etc.) and/or bottle after bottle of Jim Beam or whatever "affordable" spirit he chose. So why can't recent generations settle on anything but variety and complexity? Boutique cigar brands, craft breweries and the such have exploded in the last decade, but why?

I don't smoke just one brand of cigar, but my tastes in alcohol are pretty basic. I'm not that hard to please in terms of complexity with cigars either. Although most people seem to shun one-dimensional cigars, I tend to enjoy many one-dimensional smokes.
I also think that we have much less of a sense of brand loyalty than we did fifty to one hundred years ago. Not that there's anything wrong with that (well not much wrong with it).