TOM’S FOOLERY CASK STRENGTH BOURBON
Single Barrel #35 selected by K&L (2023)MASH BILL – 69% corn, 19% rye, 10% malted barley, 2% malted rye
PROOF – 109.1
AGE – 11 years 6 months
DISTILLERY – Tom’s Foolery Distillery
PRICE – $76
WORTH BUYING? – Oh yes
This single barrel release arrived at K&L toward the end of my Year of No Buying, and I crossed my fingers there would still be a bottle left by that year’s end. Lo and behold, when the day came, only four bottles remained. I snapped one up!
My first experience with Tom’s Foolery was also a single barrel selected by K&L, #31, bottled in 2017 as a 5-year bottled-in-bond offering. Like the current SiB #35, that #31 was also distilled in May 2012. So it’s reasonable to assume they are close cousins and a comparison could be interesting. I enjoyed #31 enough to get a back up, which I still have on hand, so a comparison is indeed possible. What might the differences be between the 5+ year BiB bottling and this 11+ year cask strength bottling?
There is another key difference at work beyond age and proof, however. The mash bill of that #31 SiB was 72% corn, 16% rye, and 12% malted barley, a rather traditional bourbon mash bill. The #35 SiB, on the other hand, ups the rye quotient to a total of 21%, with 2% of that being malted rye. In fact, every Tom’s Foolery whiskey I’ve had has featured a slightly different mash bill. They seem to be in perpetual experimentation in this regard. A third K&L SiB bourbon, #121 from 2019, featured 56% corn, 25% rye, and 19% malted barley, and came across very differently than the accomplished #31 from two years earlier. It tasted woody, grainy and young, lacking any significant sweetness, “craft” in a cliche of that term.
Tom’s Foolery would seem to be unconcerned with establishing a set flavor profile. Instead they establish their identity on a variable and a certain spirit of chance. They’re a small mom-and-pop operation, operating out of a barn on the farm where they grow a good deal of their own grain. They have one pot still and one assembly line. Their whiskeys are truly hand crafted. With no real need to imitate the more ubiquitous Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee distilleries, Tom’s Foolery embraces experimentation with high quality local ingredients and small scale production.
So how is it?
Here we are, nine days after uncorking and four pours into the bottle. These brief notes were taken using a traditional Glencairn.
COLOR – deep dark oranges and reds
NOSE – dark cherry, antique lacquered oak, a thick dark chocolate syrup, dense caramel in chunks, dried rye spices, dry ginger, malt, finely ground baking spices
TASTE – the oak and rye spices kick up a notch, yet still that dark cherry note dominates, with a syrupy texture that conjures the chocolate
FINISH – the antique wood, the cherry and dry rye spices very much in balance, chocolate, thick homemade graham cracker, malt, dried ginger
OVERALL – a decadent, rich, rustic, antique, thick, dense bourbon
This I like. Very much. It’s the best of several worlds. It’s rich and decant, with dark sticky sweet cherry notes and layers of antique wood notes. And yet despite the power of these aspects, altogether they’re gentle enough to be approachable. From the nose through to the finish, the various notes have a density and even restraint to them, and yet they offer themselves up to the senses with ease and confidence. That “craft” quality is there, a sense of the grains and a kind of granular rustic aspect to the feel of it. Yet it tastes very like traditional bourbon—even as we’re clearly not in Kentucky, Indiana, or Tennessee. We’re somewhere more rustic, where people take their time because they choose to have more time.
I’m reminded in many ways of this season’s other craft distillery surprise, the Old Potrero 17 Year Single Barrel. It too comes across with force and confidence, conjuring distant times and remote, quiet, natural places. This Tom’s Foolery bottling shares a certain amount of that Old Potrero’s maltiness and grit, as well as its likeness to a very old Armagnac—desserty and sweet, but with the maturity to know better than to make a show of it.
I’d say go get one but they’re long gone now. I got mine just under the wire. But this bodes well for future Tom’s Foolery releases aged a decade-plus, so keep an eye out. Tom’s Foolery is a small craft distillery demonstrating how American craft whiskey is really coming into its own. Bigger is for certain not always better.
Cheers!
The Right Spirit 