system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do beverages taste best when chilled.
gpt
The same drink, served hot and cold, will taste slightly different, due to taste and smell operating a little differently with compounds at different temperatures, and due to actual compounds in the drink behaving differently.  

As a simple example, in a cup of coffee, many of the more subtle tastes (acidic, fruity, spicy, etc) are present and obvious, but if that same cup were chilled (even without adding ice and diluting it), the subtler tastes are less apparent, and the cup tastes much more uniform.  

The answer to why some drinks, like soda or lemonade, taste better cold, is because they're formulated with an aim to creating a good taste at that temperature.  The people who designed Coca-Cola's recipe knew they wanted it served nearly ice cold, and adjusted sugar and other flavoring a to create the best taste at that temperature range.  If they chose to create a hot variant of Coke, the formula would be subtly (or maybe even significantly) changed, to take advantages of the different ways flavoring compounds behave and interact with our senses.