Brown sugar | Toasted pecan | Toffee | Coffee cake | Melted caramel | Potent and hinting at a sweet flavor profile

Brown sugar | Butter pecan pie | Touch of honeysuckle | Surprisingly sweet

Pecan topped cinnamon roll | Lingering toasted pecan aftertaste

It’s not uncommon to come across a trendy bar that has nondescript mini barrels or glass jars on their back counter begging you to discover what their mystery contents are. Sometimes they’re barrel aged cocktails, and other times infused spirits. Standard Proof Whiskey Co.’s infusion series was born from this practice. The company’s infusions range from wildflower and ginger root, to coffee, pineapple, and mint. Rather surprisingly, all of their base whiskeys are rye. Coffee infused rye? Who would have thought?

The same goes for their Pecan Rye. Pecan is often a flavor component of bourbon and one that works particularly well with it. Standard Proof Whiskey Co. must like to buck trends, as pairing pecan with rye is unusual, and perhaps kind of bizarre. Or is it?

Standard Proof Whiskey Co.’s Pecan Rye is noticeably quite sweet. Almost shockingly so. I didn’t expect soaking pecans in rye would have produced a sweet flavor profile and expected a more savory and nutty result. As a result, it’s quite approachable for those who like pecans. Thankfully the whiskey isn’t sickly sweet, though it will probably work best as an after dinner dessert whiskey. As for its rye base, it’s surprisingly a non-factor. It might be doing more “behind the scenes” than is readily apparent, but it's either blending extremely well with the pecans, or being completely crushed by them. With a high percentage of corn in its mashbill, perhaps that is the real smoking gun. Regardless, Standard Proof Whiskey Co.’s Pecan Rye pulls it off, and if you’re not deterred by pecans in general, you’ll find a lot to enjoy given the right drinking circumstances.