A little maybe. I can tell you that I hate the taste of alcohol. I have never in my life drank anything with any kind of alcohol in it, where I couldn't taste that disgusting flavor. I do like being inebriated though, so I've tried a lot.

An uncle of mine, backwoods af, all kinds of stills, dozens of different homebrew alcohols, would turn anything that "failed" into this odorless, flavorless, perfectly clear shine that I could taste only as a faint idea.

It was so potent that even at his parties, with dozens of other backwoods alcoholics, that jar would go on the stage so we could all see who drank how much, and intervene if we thought they had more than the occasional small sip. It was murderously potent, and your body had no idea.

I'm not sure either, but I guess the key term was "distinctive" in the United States federal guidelines, which might be where the misconception came from. Also, according to this article, in 2020 in the United States federal regulation, flavor was dropped:

Until recently, vodka’s long-standing federal definition was “neutral spirits distilled or treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials so as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color.”

and then they go on to regarding the new standard:

we have a new standard of identity: “‘Vodka’ is neutral spirits which may be treated with up to two grams per liter of sugar and up to one gram per liter of citric acid.” While neutrality remains part of the definition, for the first time since 1949, the standard no longer defines vodka by the character it does not possess.