Blood Oath Pact No. 11 Bourbon Review (2025)

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B-

Earlier this week saw the release of a new installment of Luxco’s Blood Oath, one of the company’s premiere expressions. The premise remains the same: take a set of separate, sourced whiskeys (some may become in-house soon, since Lux Row Distillery has been active for several years now), sometimes with a round of finishing and sometimes not, and blend them together. Sometimes, the bourbons are blended and then the married batch is given that round of finishing. Blood Oath Pact No. 11 is an example of this latter style.

This time around, Luxco drew on a 14 year old traditional (rye mash) bourbon, a 10 year old wheated bourbon, and a 7 year old traditional bourbon. That last, youngest constituent was finished in Anejo tequila barrels. That blend of bourbon was bottled at the now very well established standard (eleven years of it!) of 98.6 proof.

The Bourbon
The color of this pour is dark copper. It’s clear, with more red than copper should have, but not quite red and dark enough to be called light amber. The nose led with pine and oak, with a note of lemon zest. The scent was actually a touch bitter, as well as a little hot (and hot at not even 99 proof). Taking in the palate, the heat disappeared. The foundation was toffee and nougat with those familiar pine and oak notes from the nose, while the finish opened a touch astringent before running back to the toffee from the flavor.

Tequila cask finishes are not my bag: my frank opinion is that they are very rarely done right and often done wrong, adding nothing I see as an improvement to the whiskey. And I say that as someone who enjoys tequila and mezcal. It’s just they tend to clash with the things I appreciate about whiskeys, and American whiskeys in particular. That was definitely the case here. While not actually bad, the bitter streaks that reared up were not tannic and most unwelcome.

The Price
Blood Oath Pact 11 is priced at $130 a bottle.