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. A label approval is permission to bottle. It isn't an announcement or a release date, and Cask Grail 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 14006 filings and 12359 of them have a reading. 38 were read by hand from the label images, field by field, and serve as the check set. 12321 were read by an automated reader working under the same rules: it is shown every label image and the registry fields, must quote the printed text behind each fact, reports "not stated" when a label is silent, and its readings are scored against the hand set before each change. A second, stronger reader re-reads any label that names a distiller, a barrel selection, or a mash bill, or where the first reader's confidence is low. Nothing on a page comes from the reader's memory of a brand. The remaining 1647 show "Not read" until a reading exists.
Corrections and contact
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. Write to corrections@caskgrail.com with the TTB ID from the page and what the label actually says.