Tom's Foolery Distillery
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One of Ohio's first craft distilleries, established 2008 by Lianne and Tom Herbruck. Second legal distillery in Ohio since Prohibition. Located on a 115-acre farm near Cleveland. Grows own corn and rye. Uses traditional methods: wooden fermenters, antique copper pot still, double distillation. Produces bourbon, rye whiskey, and apple brandy. Releases ~10,000 bottles per year. Cold-climate maturation creates distinctive character.
Production Details
The Tom's Foolery Distillery Tale
The rolling hills of Chagrin Falls stretch eastward from Cleveland, where Lake Erie's cold winds sweep across 115 acres that Tom and Lianne Herbruck decided would grow more than grain. In 2008, when craft distilling was still finding its legs across America, they planted Ohio's second legal distillery since Prohibition took root in soil that had been waiting nearly eight decades for the sound of copper and steam.
Tom's Foolery Distillery rises from farmland where the Herbrucks grow their own corn and rye, closing a circle that most distillers can only dream about. The grain that waves in summer fields becomes the mash that fills their wooden fermenters by winter, a completeness that speaks to something essentially American—the belief that if you want something done right, you do it yourself, from seed to spirit.
Their antique copper pot still stands like a monument to patience in an age of shortcuts. Double distillation, they learned, cannot be rushed, and the old copper knows the difference between haste and craft. The still's curves catch morning light filtering through the stillhouse windows, while outside, Ohio's unforgiving winters work their own magic on aging barrels.
Those cold-climate seasons become partners in the process. Where Kentucky bourbon makers speak of hot summers driving spirit deep into oak, the Herbrucks have learned to trust the slow dance of freeze and thaw, the way Ohio's weather pulls different notes from the same charred staves. Ten thousand bottles a year emerge from this conversation between grain, wood, and weather—bourbon and rye whiskey that tastes of place as much as process.
The apple brandy tells another story entirely, one that reaches back to America's first distilled spirits, when every farm had an orchard and every orchard fed a still. In reviving this tradition, Tom's Foolery connects threads that Prohibition had severed, proving that innovation sometimes means remembering what came before.
Standing in their stillhouse today, watching steam rise from copper while corn grows in fields beyond the windows, you witness something both ancient and audacious: the belief that great whiskey begins not in the barrel, but in the ground beneath your feet.