Blood Oath is back with its 3rd pact. Blood Oath comes from Luxco, currently an NDP out of St. Louis while they get their new Lux Row Distillery up and running. So far I’ve been impressed with this line and you can read my thoughts on the last pact here . Let’s let Luxco explain a little bit about this juice.
Pact No. 3 offers the most unique expression yet, with a masterful union of three rye bourbons ranging in age from seven to 12 years. A 12-year rye bourbon is artfully joined by a seven-year rye bourbon and – to add an unforgettable layer of complexity – another seven-year rye finished in cabernet sauvignon barrels.
Interesting. As I always have to mention, I’m not a fan of finished whiskeys, but luckily Blood Oath uses finished whiskey as part of a blend which dials back the finish notes which is a plus for me. The cab finished whiskey utilizes casks from Swanson Vineyards in Napa Valley while the other two whiskeys are both made with rye, so I’m hoping Pact 3 will be quite a bit more intense than the previous release which featured both a port barrel whiskey and a wheated bourbon as parts of the blend.
This expression should be a little easier to find than previous pacts as Luxco will be releasing around 10,000 3-pack cases.
Disclaimer: This product was provided at no cost to Barrels and Mash with no strings attached.
Company: Luxco
Distillery: NDP
Mash bill: Blend of 3 bourbons. Read that intro.
Age: 7 – 12 years
ABV: 49.3% (98.6 proof)
Released: Early 2017
Price: $100
Color: Warm honey
Nose: Similar to Pact No. 2, the nose is quite hot on this guy straight out of the gate, so make sure you allow the pour to open up for a while before diving in. Ok. There’s a ton of peppery rye notes that jump out in front. Behind that are sweet and fruity things like brown sugar and loads of red fruit. The wine finished element is super present and jammy with a hint of funky prune. Oak takes up the back with some nice dry things.
Taste: The pepper is big here but is quickly overshadowed by the jammy cabernet showing off things like cherries and raspberries. The mouthfeel is rich and leaves your mouth completely coated. The oak is big and strong which dries out the fruity vibes a touch. Like in the nose there is a funky prune thing that lingers in the back and adds some interesting complexity.
Finish: The pepper falls away early leaving raspberry, blackberry, sweet cherry and nice oak. I’m left feeling like I just drank wine, not whiskey, due to all the red fruit sweetness left behind.
Overall: Remember when I mentioned my opinion on finished whiskeys? That hasn’t changed. The Cab finished aspect of this blend was way more pronounced than I expected. To be honest, a couple times during writing this up I felt like I was drinking and writing about a wine. Luckily the older rye helped bring the oak and spice that offset some of cab vibes and didn’t let it completely overwhelm. Personally I wish the wine notes were dialed back a bit. I guess I’m just an old fashioned man that likes his whiskey to taste like whiskey.
Rating: 3/5
The problem with all reviewers, including you, is that they don’t taste objectively but subjectively! Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s bad, it means you don’t like it.
Perhaps if you annotated your reviews with an example of each star level whiskey that you have tasted it would help readers to see where you’re coming from.
Frankly, I find it hard to believe that a whiskey with this mashbill and blend recipe is only an average 3 star whiskey! You put this on par with Evan Williams, Jim Beam and Rittenhouse? What do you consider a 1 star? 5 star?
Thanks for reading! I could not agree more, this kind of thing is completely subjective and we in no way discourage anyone from trying this release. That’s why I wanted to preface it with the fact that I’m not a huge fan of finished whiskeys so it will provide context for those that read it. A 3 out of 5 means we liked it more than we didn’t (2.5 being totally neutral) and numerical scores for this kind of thing are always very difficult. In fact, we did a poll a while back with the intention of seeing if we could drop ratings all together but the vast majority of our readers wanted to keep the ratings. So here we are.
As for annotating other scores, we had a page with all of our scores on it but it’s under maintenance at the moment as I wanted to pull the focus away from numerical scores and more on the subjective notes and written opinions. Maybe we’ll put it back up one of these days. In regards to the three whiskeys you mentioned, I’ll list out my order of preference for you if it helps: 1. Rittenhouse. I love that stuff. 2. Blood Oath 3. Evan Williams (I assume you mean black, those single barrels are solid), 4. Jim Beam (I’m assuming you mean white, I don’t care for that stuff at all).
Hope this helped! Again, thanks for reading and letting us know your opinion, we will definitely keep it in mind.