Crooked Fox Blended Bourbon

Rating: 10/23 I'll be honest: I only bought this because it had fox in the name. That wasn't such a major factor when I bought Swift or Copper Fox Rye, but I would have passed on this were it not for the name. I also expected to get a couple of red foxes silkscreened on my bottle, but I actually a sort of oblong bottle with just a small fox icon. Oh well, it's actually still a pretty cool bottle. So, yeah, I don't expect much from this. N: Light nose. Quite muddled. I do get a little bit of wood with some light caramel leading into some spiciness (cinnamon, ginger, clove). It reminds me immediately of Ancient Age. There are some light floral-fruity (apple) notes, with maybe a bit of char. I don't dislike the nose, but it sure doesn't suggest a bold, complex bourbon. P: Far from shockingly, this is light and young. It doesn't have a lot of brash distillate or wood. It's clear that mild spirits were not aged for that long and were blended with a focus mainly on making a smooth, unobjectionable product. This doesn't taste as problematically youthful as many others I've tried, like Jim Beam White, Two Star, and Winchester Extra Smooth. Still, this is without doubt only useful for mixing. Even for that, the price is too high and I would want a more robust flavor when mixing. But what does this actually taste like? It's light with minimal wood. Some mild spices (cinnamon, ginger, and clove) come out of the wood. There are light floral and fruity (still apple) notes. There's some light caramel with a little bit of a faint corn. The alcohol does come through, but not in an aggressive way and it doesn't taste like the distillate was made with overly generous cuts (excessive heads and/or tails). My overall impression is that this tastes way over-blended. F: Light (obviously). The light caramel and corn come through more here as the wood and spice fade. It's a pretty boring finish, but there's nothing bad about it. - Conclusion - There's just nothing good or objectionable here. It's incredibly bland. Foxes are tricksters, so maybe that' the trick here - that it's super boring? There's just very little to say about this. I homed in on the 9 to 11 range here and I think I'm landing on 10. I just don't think that this is quite as good as regular Ancient Age, so I can't give it an 11. On the other hand, 9 puts this too close to Jim Beam Black (8).