Depends. Alcohol dissolves things that normally are only fat soluble so you can get an entirely different flavour from common foods (wine and beer tastings/pairings for example)

For fermented beverages the yeast and malt make a pretty unique flavour. Same with hops in a good pale ale or IPA. There's also the body and mouth feel that's hard to replicate without making alcohol. Residual sugars after fermentation are also kind of unique to alcohol since you always have normal sugars mixed in with other foods.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

This is right. Alcohol is almost a flavor multiplier and also holds flavors that might be more volatile and disappear. That’s why if you were to completely remove the alcohol from a drink like gin or something it would taste wildly different and probably very flat even though the rest of the beverage is the same.