Virgin Bourbon 7 YO

Virgin Bourbon is a product of the Heaven Hill distillery. This is a standard, i.e. rye-containing bourbon, which is aged for 7 years. Virgin Bourbon is charcoal filtered. The reviewed bottle was given to me as a gift from @Nock, and has been open for 5 weeks. Truly, the bottle label for Virgin Bourbon may be the ugliest whisk(e)y bottle label I have ever seen

Nose: fragrant sweet maple, rich natural caramel, and both black pepper and baking spices-cinnamon/cassia, nutmeg, and cloves. A little char. Very good indeed

Taste: very sweet in the mouth, a little too much so, and otherwise translates the nose flavours well. Bitter char shows more strongly upon the palate than it does in the nose. This is more char than I like in bourbon. Strong flavours

Finish: pretty long in duration, with caramel, maple, and char at the end. The balance in Virgin Bourbon is between sweet caramel and bitter char

Balance: very strong flavours make Virgin Bourbon seem not to be much constricted in the variety of its flavours by the charcoal filtration. I don't like to taste more than a hint of char in bourbon, and I do so here. @Nock uses this bourbon as a mixer, and it would be good for that purpose. As a sipper this works fine if you can enjoy a very sweet maple-y bourbon with a very noticeable char. Jim Murray rated Virgin Bourbon at 96.5 points. This bottle doesn't impress me to that degree, but I do like it, and it is a solid bourbon

Strength: huge flavours. Score 25/25 points

Quality: high quality of the flavours all around, but a little of the flavour was removed by charcoal. Score: 22/25 points

Variety: loses a bit, but just a bit, from the charcoal filtration. Score: 21/25 points

Harmony: good harmony of flavours. Score: 21/25 points

Total non-sequential score: 89/100 points

Comment: I am allowing the sequential score to stand and be posted, because I think that in this case it more represents the Virgin Bourbon tasting experience than does the non-sequential score. The non-sequential score highlights the fact that this is a bourbon with very very strong flavours. Strong flavours are a two-edged sword if there are any flavours in there which you do not like