Why do we associate the words “drink” and “drinking” with alcohol, even though we also drink non-alcoholic beverages?
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In a nutshell: We rarely talk about drinking, so the word had space left for that meaning.
It is quite common for words to take on both a generic and a specific meaning if the generic one is rarely used. Just look at the word “animal”, and how half the time it is used, we’re actually talking about “mammals without humans”.
With “drinking”, we don’t talk about drinking water/juice/tea/coffee/etc. that often. We more often simply do it without saying anything, or we heavily stress the beverage. “You should drink more water!” or “Do you want tea or juice for breakfast?” for example.
This opens up “drink” for this additional meaning where the exact type of liquid (beer, wine, spirits, …) is of no concern; “Do you want to go out for a drink?”. Which works fine, with only very rare occasions that need to be cleared up by context; “What do you want to drink?” has a different meaning at a tea house than a pub. And very nicely, that question still leaves non-alcoholic beverages open as an answer.
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