How it works
A library that learns your palate.
My Liquor Library is the notebook in your back pocket and the librarian who's been quietly noticing what you reach for. Learn more about yourself; find what truly fits your palate. Four steps, one habit — here's the whole thing.
01
Log a tasting
Pour something. Open the dashboard, find the bottle (search by name, scan its barcode from your phone, or add it if it's not in the library yet), and jot what you noticed.
The form scales to your tier. Beginners get a friendly chip grid — sweet, oak, vanilla, smoke. Advanced tasters unlock connoisseur vocabulary like medicinal peat, rancio, allspice. Sommeliers see the full library. You can move up or down anytime; old notes keep the tier you wrote them at, so your history is honest about where you were.
Every tasting captures three honest paragraphs — nose, palate, finish — plus optional flavor tags, an overall rating, the bottle's distillery + region, and a photo of the room or the glass. It takes about ninety seconds.
02
Build your palate
As tastings stack up, the library quietly builds a palate profile — your evolving picture of which flavors you love, which you push past, and the patterns underneath both.
We weigh your likes and dislikes — not just count them. Recent pours and confident notes pull harder than a single offhand entry. Patterns rise out of the noise so the recommendations have something honest to point at.
You can see your own profile any time on the palate profile page — top flavors, disliked flavors, and a flavor-wheel visualization that makes the shape of your taste click.
03
Get recommendations
Once your profile has shape, the library starts pointing forward. We rank the bottles you haven't tasted yet against what you actually like, and surface the ones that fit you best.
Recommendations come with reasons. The card tells you which of your favorite flavors this bottle hits and which distilleries you've loved share family resemblance. No black box.
Multi-lens recs let you slice the suggestions by region, category, or price — "what should I drink that's local to Kentucky," "show me sub-$60 bourbons that match me," "rank this bar's menu against my taste."
04
Carry your QR
Your profile has a public face — a QR code that links to a bartender-friendly snapshot of your recent tastings, top flavors, and badges. No email, no last name, just palate.
Hand it to a bartender. They scan and instantly know that you love smoky scotches but find heavy peat brittle, that you've been chasing tropical-fruit rums lately, that you've never actually tried a mezcal and might be ready. They pour something you'll like.
The QR is opt-in and toggleable from your profile. Off means a 404 for strangers; on means your taste travels with you.
Beyond the basics
Four layers on top of the core loop.
The four steps above are the daily habit. More layers grow with you as the habit takes — Chronicle reading, live Study Groups, the prestige ladder, the academic Library Standing, a native mobile app, and push notifications when something you care about happens.
THE CHRONICLE
Industry journalism, in one place.
Spirits journalism with bylines: news, regulatory affairs, awards coverage, releases, education. Follow specific authors or topics in-app and the Chronicle personalizes itself to you. Verified journalists earn tier-based publishing privileges.
Read the Chronicle →
STUDY GROUPS
Live tasting events, with friends.
A host curates a four-bottle lineup. Participants taste through together, ratings aggregate in real time, and every entry mirrors to your private journal. Seminar table, shared pour, conversation.
How sessions work →
THE PRESTIGE LADDER
Earn standing for what you learn.
Six tiers (Bronze → Obsidian) across more than two dozen badges. Palate breadth, regions tasted, library contribution, posts read, sessions joined, producers followed. Leaderboards by category, plus an annual Curator Cup that recognizes a full year of growth. Login-based streaks — never tied to drinking.
Tour the badges →
LIBRARY STANDING
Academic standing, plain and clear.
Student → Scholar → Fellow → Rhodes → Curator on the academic ladder. Sommelier and Master Sommelier on the parallel verification track. Standing shows on your profile and your QR; it’s how peers and bartenders read your seriousness at a glance.
See the ladder →
MOBILE APP
In your pocket, the moment you taste.
iOS and Android. Tasting MVP first — full tier-aware tasting flow, barcode scan, journal, collection, native push, and the QR profile. Beta open via apple.myliquorlibrary.com (iOS) and google.myliquorlibrary.com (Android).
How the app works →
PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
Pings only when it matters.
Browser push for badge unlocks, the daily 10pm producer digest, Chronicle posts from authors and topics you follow, and Study Group reminders. Five categories, each independently opt-out at /settings/notifications.
See what we send →
Tiered notes
Your vocabulary grows with you.
The flavor library is split into five tiers. You see only what's useful at your current stage — move up when the chip grid starts feeling limiting.
Beginner
- sweet
- oak
- vanilla
- smoke
Curated starter vocabulary. No intensity scales. Built for your first 20 tastings.
Intermediate
- leather
- tobacco
- stone fruit
Adds nuance. Optional 1–5 intensity scale per flavor.
Advanced
- graphite
- lanolin
- wet slate
Niche descriptors for the seasoned palate.
Expert
- medicinal peat
- tar
- rancio
Connoisseur vocabulary. Terms you'll find in serious notes.
Sommelier
- creosote
- brettanomyces
The full library, including specialist terms. Verification-gated.
Ready to start?
Log your first pour.
Free, ad-free, 21+. The library rewards what you learn — palate breadth, vocabulary, contribution, presence — never drinking volume. Streaks count days you opened the app, not days you poured.