I started buying Tom's Foolery after a family trip back to Cleveland, Ohio. My wife's grand parents lived in the gorgeous little town of Chagrin Falls and over a glass of my grand-mother in law's home made Bailey's (they don't really drink but made an exception for me!), someone mentioned a little distillery down the way. We took a little detour on our way out of town to find the Herbruck's home and they were gracious enough to welcome us unannounced. What I found absolutely astonishing. In the barn behind the house, Tom was using a famous old still to make some of the best craft whisky I'd ever tasted. The quality back then was astonishing, but one thing I always said to myself was, "I can't wait to see how this stuff ages out." Well here we are, more than a decade later and the whiskies are absolutely incredible. This cask is quintessential Tom's Foolery boasting their classic high malted rye mashbill (70% rye, 30% malted rye). In its youth this stuff is an absolute menthol bomb, but 8+ years under its belt, we've reach a new level. Let's have a go! The color is a vibrant auburn. The nose, like all these whiskies, starts extremely closed, but with obviously tons of stuffing. Big pumpernickel and barrel spice at first. After 30 min in the glass we start to see the true nature of this gorgeous whisky. Perfect dark toasty rye spice, dense cherry and wild berry fruit, wild oak varnish-y wood and an endless bouquet of sweet fresh and roasted herbs. With further aeration a lovely bitter orange oil, cracked pepper and pungent peppermint aroma begins to waft, but never over takes the other gorgeous aromatics. On the palate, an upfront sweetness with tons of roasted nuts (pecan pie?) which builds towards a tense clove spice through the mid-palate. There adds along side the spice sweet caramel candies and a warming rye spice on the backend. We've got tons of pepper, salted licorice, bitter herbs and exotic wood. There's almost a Tea Tree note, perhaps the logical end to the youthful mint flavors we had in previous bottlings, but it doesn't edge into much bitterness at all. This hits all the geeks rye notes, while at the same time being more overt and pleasurable than any other craft rye on the market. This whisky leaves me undeterred in my belief that Tom's Foolery is the most exciting and delicious truly craft whisky on the market today - NOT an easy feat by any measure. Add to that an incredibly reasonable price and you've got one of the best values on the shelf of any kind.