Methodology
Where the data comes from
Every distilled spirit sold in the United States must have its label approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau before it ships. Each approval is a Certificate of Label Approval, a COLA, and it is public record in the TTB's online registry, with the label images attached. CaskGrail reads that registry and nothing else: no press releases, no retailer listings, no user submissions.
What a filing is and is not
A filing means a producer asked for and received label approval. It predates a release, typically by weeks and sometimes by months, and some approved labels are never bottled. A filing is not an announcement and not a release date, and CaskGrail never says otherwise.
What each field means
- Filed
- The date the TTB approved the label, as published in the registry.
- Type
- The registry's class and type code, rendered in plain words. The label's own class statement governs when they differ.
- Age
- The age statement printed on the label. "Not stated" means the label carries none; CaskGrail never writes an age the label does not.
- Proof
- As printed on the label.
- Distilled in
- The state the label names as the place of distillation, or the state in a named distiller's address.
- Distiller
- "Own still" when the label says the same house distilled and bottled it. "Not named" when the label names a state but no distiller. "Bottler only" when the label names a bottler and makes no distillation claim. "Not stated" when the label carries no producer statement at all.
- Picks
- A filing counts as a pick only when its label names who chose the barrel, in the label's own words.
What CaskGrail will not infer
No distiller is ever inferred from a state, a brand, a barrel number, or a rumor. "Distilled in Indiana" is reported as exactly that. CaskGrail does not use the words sourced or non-distilling producer as its own claims, because they are conclusions, and the reader is better placed to draw them from the facts shown. CaskGrail does not show, link, or estimate secondary-market prices.
How labels are read today
The register holds 228 filings. 38 labels have been read by hand from the label images, field by field, with the source label noted on each page. The remaining 190 show "Not read" for label facts until a reading exists. Automated reading with the same rules and a review queue is the next stage of the project; when it ships, each page will state which method read it.
Corrections
If a page misstates what a label says, the label image on that page is the check. Corrections are welcome and are applied to the reading, never to the registry record.