To find system files in the Finder, do a Command-F. Click on the pop-up menu with "Kind" in it and go down to "Other...". Check the box next to "System Files". Back in the Find window set the System Files option to "include" and now when you search for "hosts" you'll find the hidden file.
Right. Maybe I'm the only one who tried to follow those steps. It "found" "more than 10,000 files".
Seems quite a bit when searching on the word "hosts". Initially when searching "This Mac" I get 598 items and then just switching to "File Name" instead of "Contents" brings it down to 76 items.
You can further narrow it down by adding the search parameter "Name" as set it to "is" and type "hosts" there and it brings it down to 8 items. Selecting the results one by one will show the path below and for me the first one listed is the /private/etc/hosts file.
