Drank for the first time, that stuff is awful

I’m 23 and just have a long list of reasons why I never wanted to drink so I never tried, but on vacation my boyfriend was getting a drink and he’s been wanting me to try alcohol and I saw a caramel drink on the menu so I figured why not and ordered it to try. I made my boyfriend try it first and he said it was good.

It barely got on my tongue before I had to spit it out, it tasted like pure rubbing alcohol and burned my tongue for like 10 minutes after. There was no caramel flavor at all. How do people drink? Are there any caramel drinks that actually taste like caramel or does all alcohol taste so 10% hydrogen peroxide like