Alcohol consumption and sweet substance consumption are strongly associated and appear to share brain mechanisms. In animals, rodents with a high preference for sweet substances consume more ethanol than those with a low preference for these substances. The present study investigates a novel model of voluntary ethanol consumption in which ethanol access follows a time-restriction eating of sweet pellets (59,1% carbohydrate). For this purpose, 61 male Wistar rats were deprived at 82-85% of weight two days before the experiment. For the next 10 days, the animals had access for 3 minutes to either a high amount (72 pellets for experimental condition) or a low amount of sweet reward pellets (6 pellets for control condition). Immediately after that, rats were tested in a two-bottle choice test (duration: 90 min) in which they were exposed to one bottle of ethanol (6% or 10% w/w) and one bottle of water. Rats exposed to a high amount of sweet pellets drank significantly more ethanol in both ethanol concentrations (F6,454 = 13.846, p < .001, η²p = .27) than the control condition. Moreover, rats with 10% of ethanol drank significantly more than the 6% (F6,454 = 2.154, p < .05, η²p = .05). In additional experiment, alcohol consumption was maintained after adding quinine to 10% of ethanol (0.01, 0.03 and 0.1g/L). The relationship between the taste of ethanol and sweet may play a crucial role on the ethanol intake in this model. The sweet neural pathway seems to be essential on voluntary ethanol consumption; as long as rats sense such taste in ethanol solutions and its suppression produces a reduction of ethanol intake. It is possible that sweet reward pellets stimulate the brain reward pathway and promotes the subsequent consumption of ethanol. Funded by PND-2020-049 (DGPNSD. Ministerio de Sanidad, Spain); FPU18/05012 (Ministerio de Universidades, Spain) and B-CTS-422-UGR18 (Programa Operativo FEDER, Junta de Andalucía)