[eloff]

I wonder who took it upon themselves to taste all the different kinds of crude oil to classify them by flavor... Job for a grad student?

[xyzzyz]

Oil prospectors invented the terms when they were combing the backcountry looking for oil, without access to proper chemical labs.

[vo2maxer]

I just found this humorous clip of the Trailer Park Boys, which alludes to the tastes of various types of gasoline: https://youtu.be/RXtePW4v8zs

[sleepydog]

Wasn't oil used medicinally for a while after its discovery? Not ingested, but rubbed on your skin to ease joint pain?

[sandworm101]

More than for "a while". Oil was discovered hundreds, thousands, of years ago. It used to seep out of the ground in many places (See the opening sequence of The Beverly Hillbillies). Only once we started pumping it did all the surface seeps dry up.

[SEJeff]

Fun fact, it still does, in 2019, seep out of the ground in downtown Los Angeles. Literally on the miracle mile sits the La brea Tarpits. You can see the pond with oil bubbling out of the water. If you're ever in Los Angeles, it is a very memorable thing to visit.

https://tarpits.org/