Rating: 11/23 N: Some earth, grain, and alcoholic bite. It makes me think of a wheat vodka, but there is a bit more sweetness with faint orange and touch of something herbal. It's also a bit spicy in a way that makes me worry it might be a bit harsh. P: Sweet and then a spicy, alcoholic bite hits. Definitely a vodka base. A little harsh, but not too bad. There's a bit of something in the vicinity of orange, but sweeter than soda. It's more like a somewhat light caramel flavor. It reminds me a bit of that sweet caramel side of Don Julio 1942, but it's not as nice of a flavor and it's more one-dimensional. Maybe sort of cream soda flavor too? Yeah, I get that a little. Maybe brown sugar or something? The takeaway here is this: it mostly tastes like various forms of sugar. I like the rich, full, viscous nature of the palate, but the alcohol bite is a bit rough. To whatever extent there are actual spices, I'm afraid that they're just getting munged with the alcohol harshness. F: Some lingering alcohol burn. It's more the alcohol side of the vodka than an actual spice flavor. - Conclusion - Honestly, it's hard to believe that there are 43 botanicals in this. It barely tastes like there's one. I didn't have enough left to play around with it in some cocktails, but I feel like it's just sweet syrup, so I can pretty well guess what it would taste like. It's better than your typical flavored vodka by miles. This goes all right with Rémy Martin 1738 (16/23), but I feel like the Rémy Martin is pulling most of the weight there. This is quite nice mixed with soda. There's something a tad artificial about it, but I think it tastes better than most commercial sodas (at least it doesn't have that metallic taste). I can imagine going down to a 10 for this, but I think it's fine enough that I don't want to go quite that low. A 14 seems too high to me though. I've been circling around a 12 and that's where I think I'm landing. It may be good with soda, but if that's the best I can say of a spirit, it isn't that good of a spirit. Actually, I'm thinking more of a 10 or 11 on my final sips. I think I'll give it an 11. I feel like I might have made it sound like this was excessively harsh. It wasn't all that harsh. It's more that I noticed it and it reminded me that there's vodka in here, so half of what I was tasting was vodka. That isn't terrible on its own (though it isn't great). The real problem here is that it just doesn't taste that good on its own or in cocktails. Maybe an 11 is a little too harsh (or maybe not), but it really isn't a LOT too harsh. My best guess is that this would be a good substitute for simple syrup or honey syrup in a boozy variation of some cocktail.