There are so many variables which impact your tasting experience. Reviews you've read, comments from others, what you've eaten or drank at the time, variety of the product, aeration, additional water, your frame of mind, how long a bottle has been open and more. I generally find however that as a bottle opens, you try it again in a different setting etc you can get a bit of variation but generally it's within half a Distiller point - sometimes up and often down. All you can really do is try a few times and make a call. I think with the Colonel range I've had a good crack over the years and although they are a quality product they aren't one that blow me away and VFM is way out of wack in NZ. This one is probably the least favorite of the range. Nice drop; balanced but not loads of complexity and little body. There are much better bourbans out there IMHO and hopefully I'll be coming across one or two in the last 3 out of the 7 in my BBB tasting tour. 3.5 rounding down for VFM.