Answers to the things the app actually
provokes, grouped so you can find yours. Open a heading to read it.
Adding a bottle9
How do I add a bottle?
Open the Whiskey, Wine or Cigars tab, press + Add, and fill in what you know. Only the name is required. Type the brand as well if you can, because it is half of what matches your bottle to the shared catalogue. Everything else can come later or fill itself in.
Do I have to type it all in?
No. Press 📷 Scan the bottle (📷 Scan the cigar on the cigar form) and take one photo of the front label. That one picture reads the label into the form, pulls down anything the shared catalogue already knows about the bottle, searches the web for what is still missing, and becomes the bottle's photograph. On most bottles all you have left to type is what you paid and when you bought it.
The scan got the brand or name wrong.
Type over it. The scan only fills fields that are empty, so your correction sticks. If the catalogue already holds that bottle under a different spelling, the scan offers you that spelling with a button. Take it. That is what connects your bottle to the shared photo and the researched facts.
I've just signed up. Where do I start?
The Five bottles, then your first grade card on Home. Add five in a category, scanning is quickest, and it turns into the button that runs your first grade. It goes away once you have one.
How do I add a lot of bottles at once?
Tools → Your data → Bulk import to collection. Paste rows from a spreadsheet. A header row is skipped automatically, so you can select the whole sheet including the titles. The template has twenty-three columns. Wine's Varietal, Region and Country are over half of what the wine grade reads, so fill them in. After those come the drinking window, the location (cellar spot or humidor), a cigar's box date and box code, and Bought from. A spreadsheet that stops at Date bought still imports exactly as it did before. A sheet you downloaded from the app has two more columns, Quantity and Finished: the quantity is read, and a row marked finished is skipped so a bottle you drank does not come back. Imported bottles come in without photos: they show one only if the shared catalogue already has a picture of that bottle, and you can add your own by opening it, pressing Edit, then ✨ Photo only.
What do I put in fields I don't know?
Leave them blank. A blank is honest and the app can often fill it later. A guess is a claim the grading reads as though you had checked it. Mash bill, proof and age statement are the three that move your grade, so those are the ones to chase.
How do I record a store pick or single barrel?
Fill in Barrel # (optional) on the whiskey form, plus the dump date and warehouse if the label has them. That barrel number is what keeps your pick from being confused with the standard bottling. It gets its own entry in the shared database, its own proof, and its own line on the insurance report. Twelve single barrels of the same expression are twelve entries and one shared photograph.
My scan filled almost nothing in.
The status line under the scan says which half fell over and what it cost you. "Searched the web for it and found nothing to fill in" means the bottle is not published anywhere, which is normal for small or allocated releases. "The bottle-facts search failed" means try again. "Nothing readable" means the camera got no brand and no name, so nothing was searched and nothing was charged. On a bottle, retake it straight on in better light. On a cigar the band may have nothing printed on it at all, so photograph the box, a second band at the foot, or the cellophane sticker.
How do I look a bottle up without scanning?
Type a brand, then press Lookup specs. You do not need the bottle name. Pick the brand alone and it shows you every bottle of theirs the catalogue holds.
Photographs5
How do I get a picture on a bottle?
The scan makes one automatically. On a bottle you already own, open it, press Edit, then ✨ Photo only.
My photo came out small or blurry.
Get closer. Stand as near as you can while the whole bottle, cap to base, still fits in the picture. The bottle is cut out and enlarged to fill the frame, so one taken from across the room ends up small and soft. Good light, straight on, and no glare on the label.
My bottle has a photo I never took.
Somebody else photographed the same bottle and it was approved into the shared catalogue. Add a bottle, get the picture. It is not written onto your record, so if you take your own, yours wins immediately.
How do I get rid of a bad photo?
Open the bottle and press Remove photo on the detail sheet. If the button is not there, the picture is not yours. It is the shared one, and you can replace it by taking your own.
Where do my photos go?
Firebase Storage, under your own account. No other collector on the pilot can see them. Scott can, as the person running it. A photo reaches other people only if you offer it to the shared catalogue and it is approved. The small copy the scan sends off to read the label is thrown away. The capture itself becomes your bottle's photograph and is kept.
Drinking it10
How do I record a pour?
Open the bottle and press Pour one. This is the one nobody finds, and it matters most: pours are what "bottles you have not touched" reads, and what cost-per-pour is worked out from. Without them the app cannot tell a bottle you drink weekly from one you have ignored for two years.
How do I set how full a bottle is?
The level buttons on the detail sheet. Setting a level is not treated as drinking it. Only "Pour one" moves that clock, because looking at a bottle and typing 50% is not the same as having had some.
How do I mark a bottle finished?
Open it and press Mark finished on the detail sheet. You get three choices: log it and be done, log it and add it to the watchlist to buy again, or remove it completely with no record. Finished bottles leave your shelf but stay in the record. They are not counted in your grade, your share or your insurance report.
I marked something finished by mistake.
Press Finished (n) at the top of that collection to show the finished list, then Restore. That button and Mark finished on a bottle are two different things. One shows the list, the other puts a bottle on it.
What is "Buy again"?
On a finished bottle, it puts that bottle back on your watchlist.
How do I log a cigar I smoked?
Open it and press Smoked one. It takes one off the count and dates it, so the sheet can say how many you have smoked and when. The last one asks first, because it moves the cigar to your finished list.
What are box date and box code?
On the cigar form, the date and factory code stamped on the box. The box date is what collectors age by, so when it is filled in the detail sheet counts how long the cigar has rested from there rather than from when you bought it. Box of is how many the box held. Leave it blank for singles.
How do I mark a wine opened?
Open it and press Opened it. It then shows on What's open right now, with how many days it has been open, which is the number that matters once the cork is out.
What is the drinking window?
The years a wine is at its best, typed the way it is printed: 2026-2034, now-2030, 2028+. A single year is read as "ready from". The scan looks for a published window for that exact vintage and leaves it blank rather than guessing one from the grape. The Wines to drink card on Home lists anything past its window, anything closing this year or next, and anything whose window opens this year.
My wines have no drinking window. Can the app find them?
Yes, for any wine with a vintage. Open the wine and press Look up the drinking window, or use the button on the Wines to drink card on Home to look up ten at a time. Each lookup costs about 2 cents and uses one lookup from your monthly allowance. Only a window that a critic, the producer or a merchant has published for that vintage is filled in, and nothing is worked out from the grape. A wine without a vintage is skipped, because a window belongs to a vintage.
The grade7
How do I get a grade?
It runs by itself. Every Sunday night the app re-assesses any collection whose contents changed that week. You do not have to ask for it and it costs you nothing.
How do I re-run it now?
The bar under the header on any collection tab has a re-assess button, and shows how many manual runs you have left this month. Every press is a real cost, so the count stays on screen.
Why is my grade a C?
Because a C is a good grade here. The bands are hard, an A is close to unreachable, and a low grade means narrow, not bad. A shelf built around one style scores low by design. Scott's own 137-bottle collection scores C+.
What actually moves it?
Filling in blanks, mostly. On whiskey the assessment reads mash bill, proof, age statement, cask finish, distillery, region, your tier tag and your notes, and nothing else beyond the brand and name. Distillery is the one people leave blank and it now counts: it is how the grading tells a producer who distils their own whiskey from one who buys and finishes it, which is worth part of a whole dimension. A bottle with the scored fields blank contributes almost nothing however good it is, and the "evidence basis" line on the assessment tells you how much of your read was guesswork off bottle names.
Does my rating count towards it?
No. Claudius never sees your ratings. Your own opinion of a bottle is not evidence about the bottle, so it cannot flatter your grade. "Your favourites" answers that question separately, for free, and updates instantly.
Do finished bottles count?
No. A bottle you drank is not variety you own.
What is the Scoreboard?
It is on The Rickhouse tab: everyone on the pilot ranked by collection score, one board per category. Your grade is published when you sign in and again whenever you re-assess. Your name on the board below it sets what you show as, and it is never your email address.
Reading it2
Can I make it lighter? It is hard to read on a phone.
Yes. ☾ Light, on the right just above the tab row. It switches the whole app to a light background with dark text. Press it again (☀ Dark) to switch back. It is remembered on that device and not on your account, so your phone can be light while a laptop stays dark. It also works before you sign in, so the demo has it too.
Can I print a page?
The Analysis tabs, yes: open Whiskey, Wine or Cigars → Analysis and press Print. It comes out black on white whichever display you are using, so you do not have to switch to the light one first, and it leaves out the tabs, the buttons and the top bars. The grade is kept off a page break, since that is usually the reason for printing it. If what you want is a document to file or email, the insurance report under Tools → Reports is the better one.
Asking Claudius2
How do I ask a question?
The Ask Claudius button, bottom right, on every tab. It knows your whole collection, so "what should I open tonight" and "do I have anything like this" are fair questions.
How many questions do I get?
60 a month, and no more than 15 in a day. A question that needs a web search costs considerably more than one answered from your collection, which is why there is a cap at all.
Deciding what to do8
How do I find a bottle on my own shelf?
Every collection tab has a search box above the list, and it reads more than the name. On whiskey it searches the brand, distillery, region, mash bill, cask finish, age statement and barrel number. On wine the grape, the region, the country and the vintage, so typing cab or Rioja finds them. On cigars the wrapper, binder, filler, origin, vitola, size and strength. It does not search your tasting notes. A search for oak that returned every bottle whose notes mention oak would bury the ones that actually are oak-finished. The box clears itself when you change tabs.
I'm in a shop. Do I already own this?
Check a bottle, top left of every screen, or the card on the Home tab. Take a photo of the label and it tells you whether that bottle is already on your shelf or your watchlist. It does not price it. Ask Claudius if that is the question.
What should I drink tonight?
Tonight's pour on the Home tab. Chips let you scope it to whiskey, wine or cigars, and it leans towards bottles you have not rated yet.
What goes with this cigar?
Pairing finder on the Home tab. Pick a category, then the thing.
How do I set up a blind tasting?
Pick my blind on the Home tab, whiskey only. It picks three bottles that teach something, like the same distillery across three ages, or one wheater among two high-ryes, and names the axis afterwards. Recording the result logs three pours.
What are the everyday bottles on the Analysis tab?
Everyday bottles worth having, on the whiskey Analysis tab: widely available, well regarded bottles that each add something different. It is one view and not part of the grade, so it never moves your score. Owning one ticks it off by itself. Set aside hides one you have passed on, or own under a spelling it missed, and Put back brings it back. The harder-to-find ones are listed apart.
What is the Craft producers panel?
Also on the whiskey Analysis tab: the small and independent houses on your shelf, and the ones other collectors here have that you do not. Not part of the grade either.
What have I been neglecting?
Bottles you have not touched on the Home tab. The windows differ by category, because eighteen months sealed means a whiskey was forgotten and a wine is barely started.
The watchlist2
How do I add something I want?
The Watchlist view on any collection tab, then + Add.
I bought one. How do I move it across?
Press the ✓ on the watchlist row. Its tooltip reads "Got it". It opens the add form with what you already typed, so you are only filling in what you paid.
Getting data out14
How do I share my collection?
The Rickhouse tab → Share your collection. It makes a read-only link anybody can open with no account. It shows what is on the shelf and does not show what you paid, what anything is worth, when you bought it, your notes, your ratings or your grade.
How do I stop sharing?
Same panel, Stop sharing. It asks first, because the link dies for good: sharing again makes a new address, and anyone holding the old one sees nothing.
What is The Rickhouse tab?
The club. The Rickhouse is the club and the Ledger is the app its members use, so everything social lives there: the pilot circle, the scoreboard and sharing. When The Rickhouse reaches 300 members we pick our first single barrel together, bought through a licensed retailer. There is no date, because it depends on the count.
What is the year in review?
On The Rickhouse tab: what you added, opened, poured, smoked and finished in a year, the new distilleries you tried, your most-poured bottle, and where your grade started and ended. It reads only what is already in the app, so it costs nothing. A bottle counts in the year of its Acquired date, which is why filling that in matters. Grades are recorded from the day this shipped, so this year's starting grade is the first one seen.
What is the pilot circle?
An opt-in group on The Rickhouse tab. Members see which bottles on their wish list another member holds, which of their own bottles is on somebody else's wish list, and who else has the bottle they are looking at. Only producer, name and vintage are shared, under a name you choose. Never a price, a note, a date or your email address. To join, type the name other members will see and press Join. Leave the circle takes you out straight away.
Can I trade bottles through the circle?
No. It shows who has what and stops there. It does not arrange, broker or ship any swap or sale, and in many states trading or shipping alcohol without a licence is not allowed. Anything you set up with another member is between the two of you.
What is coming for members?
Coming for members on The Rickhouse tab lists what is planned, in no particular order and with no dates. Nothing on it is built yet.
Does the share update?
Yes, automatically, a few seconds after any change. The link stays the same forever, so one you sent last month still works and still shows today's shelf.
How do I make an insurance report?
Tools → Reports → Insurance report. It opens in a new tab, and you can print it or save it as a PDF. Every bottle with your own photograph gets a picture embedded in the document, so you can file or email it without depending on any link.
How do I back up?
Tools → Your data → Full data backup, or Download my data on the Home tab's Your data card. Downloads everything as a file. The reminder at the top of the screen is worth listening to.
Can I get it as a spreadsheet?
Yes. Download as a spreadsheet on the Home tab's Your data card, or beside the backup on Tools. Every bottle, wine and cigar, one row each, opens in Excel or Google Sheets. The first columns are the bulk-import template, so you can paste rows back in. Finished bottles are marked and are skipped if you do.
Can I keep the receipt?
Yes. Open the bottle and press Add a receipt, then take a photo of it or pick one. It is kept with that bottle, under your own account like your photos, and it is never on a share. View, Replace and Remove are in the same place.
Where do the estimated values come from?
Type your own in Est. retail value and Est. market value (Est. secondary value on whiskey) and they are never touched. Left blank, they fill from the shared catalogue's researched figures, which carry the month they were found and are refreshed when the catalogue re-prices that bottle. A bottle nobody has priced yet leaves Est. retail blank rather than copying what you paid.
What have I spent?
The What you've spent card on Home. Price paid times how many, by the year you bought it, with this year broken down by month. Anything with a price but no Acquired date it can read is counted separately and says so.
The Barrel tab13
What is the Barrel tab?
An infinity or solera vessel. You pour bottles in, draw from it, and top it up. The app tracks what is in there, its proof, its age and what it cost you.
How do I start one?
Barrel tab → Create a vessel. Say whether it is glass or wood, and how big. Once you have one, New vessel at the bottom starts another.
How do I add or take out?
Pour in picks a bottle from your collection. A whole bottle is marked finished automatically, and a partial pour leaves it on the shelf. Pour out is a draw.
Why does it ask how full it is?
Because that is the only measurement that matters. A draw does not change any percentage, because the liquid is mixed and everything leaves in proportion. Composition only moves at a top-up, and a real reading at that moment wipes out every accumulated error, including evaporation you could never have logged.
The markings on my carboy are wrong.
Then calibrate it: Barrel tab → The scale on this vessel → Add a calibration point. Pour in an amount you know, read the scale, and enter the real figure and the reading. Scott's own carboy sat at 125 oz with 105 oz in it, so on that vessel a reading of 125 means 105, and every reading is corrected in proportion, including ones you logged before you calibrated it. It only touches level readings. Pour-ins, pour-outs and the amount you draw off are measured by bottles and jugs, so they are taken as given. Most vessels never need this.
Can I use a kitchen scale instead of measuring volume?
Yes, for pours. Anywhere an amount is asked for, whether that is a pour in, a pour out, the amount you draw off or the real figure on a calibration point, you can type a weight instead: `55g`, `0.2kg`, `0.12lb`. It converts using the proof of the liquid, because whiskey is not water: at 100 proof an ounce weighs 27.4 g, so a gram read as a millilitre is 7% short. Two catches. A scale set to ounces reads weight, so switch it to grams: oz here means fluid ounces, and the two are only 3% apart. And a kitchen scale will not hold the vessel itself. A full two-gallon carboy is around 20 lb against the 11 lb most of them manage, so weigh what goes in and out and leave the level alone. The history row names both figures, so you can check it later.
What units can I type?
Anywhere an amount or a bottle size is asked for: `750` or `375` (a bare number is millilitres in a size field, and the vessel's own unit in an amount field), `25oz`, `1.75L`, `5cl`, `2tbsp`, `3tsp`, `1cup`, `1pt`, `1qt`, `1gal`, or a weight like `55g`. Spoons and cups are US measures, so a pint here is 473 ml and not the imperial 568. A few are refused because they mean two different things and nothing in the text says which: t and T (teaspoon or tablespoon), c (cup or centilitre), and shot, dash and splash. Type those out in full, or use a unit that is not ambiguous.
Can I work out a barrel before I pour it?
Yes. Barrel tab → the Plan button beside What is in there. Stage the pours you are thinking about and it works out what the vessel would be — the volume, the proof, the age at entry, what it cost and the style chart — before any of it leaves a bottle. Nothing on that pane touches your shelf or the vessel: bottles are not marked finished, levels do not move, and the vessel's own figures are unchanged until you press Pour it all in. It also catches the one thing a single pour cannot see, which is the same bottle staged twice, or staged whole and in part.
What if I change my mind about a planned pour?
Remove on the row, with no question asked, because nothing has happened yet. Throw the plan away clears the lot and does ask, since it is an evening's thinking. Either way your shelf and the vessel are untouched.
Can the plan be my shopping list?
Yes. Every planned bottle that is not from your shelf shows to buy and a Got it button, and the top of the plan says how many are still to buy, so the list in the shop is the plan itself. Paid records what you actually spent and marks it bought; leave it blank to keep the price it is already using. Pressing Pour it all in with something not yet marked bought names it first.
Can I see it in gallons?
Yes. Show volumes in on the create form takes ounces, millilitres, litres or gallons, and Edit beside the vessel's name changes it later on a vessel you already have. It only changes how the numbers are printed — everything is stored the same way, so nothing in your log moves and no past figure is reinterpreted.
How do I note how it is tasting?
+ Add a tasting note in the Tasting journal panel on the vessel. Write how it tastes, then give it a mark out of 5 or leave that blank. A blank mark is no mark, and cancelling the mark keeps the note.
I made a mistake.
Undo last. It marks the entry instead of deleting it, and it puts the bottle back in your collection.
Blending your own10
What is a blend, and how is it different from a vessel?
A vessel is topped up forever and never emptied: a 2-gallon carboy on the side that you keep adding to. A blend is mixed once and then bottled: three whiskeys into 3 litres, bottled as four 750s, recipe kept. Same arithmetic underneath. The difference is whether it ends. Barrel tab → Start a blend on an empty tab, or New blend in the button row once you already have a vessel. Say how much you are making, pour into it exactly as you would a vessel, and press Bottle it when you are happy.
What happens when I bottle it?
It becomes a bottle in your collection, and the blend's log closes. You are asked how many bottles it filled, and every figure on the row is per bottle, so a 3-litre blend in four 750s is four bottles at a quarter of the value each. Its total on the insurance report is exactly what it was before you bottled it.
Where does the recipe come from?
You do not write one. The recipe is whatever you actually poured, as percentages, and it survives bottling so you can look at it forever.
Can I pick a bottle I don't own?
Yes. The Pour in list has your collection and, below it, every whiskey in the shared catalogue you do not already own. Pick one and its name, proof and age fill in for you; add what it cost if you know. This comes out of my collection is ticked for a bottle you own and unticked for one from the catalogue. Untick it on your own bottle when you are only borrowing the name, and nothing comes off your shelf.
Can I print labels for the bottles?
Yes. On a bottled blend, Print labels opens one label per bottle, 3.5 by 2.5 inches. Each has the name, the date it was bottled, the proof if every part of it had one, "1 of 4", and the recipe. Print on sticker sheets or card.
How do I make it again?
Make it again on a bottled blend. Name it, say how much you want this time, and it starts a new blend. Adjust it before you bottle and you have version 2. It remembers which blend it came from.
Will it tell me if I have enough?
Yes. Make this again scales the recipe to whatever you type and checks each component against what is left on your shelf. Anything it cannot measure says so instead of guessing: a bottle you finished into the last batch, a bottle with no level recorded, or something that never came off your shelf at all.
Can I use something that is not in my collection?
Yes. Pour in → Something not in my collection… and type a name. Everything else is optional, and the coverage figures tell you what is missing. This log is the only record that liquid will ever have, so give it a name you will recognise.
Why has my blend got no proof or age on it?
Proof is written only when every component has one recorded, because an average over part of the liquid is a number you cannot check. An age statement is never written at all. A blend's stated age is its youngest whiskey, not the average of them, so putting the average on an insurance document would overstate it. The panel still shows both, with what they cover.
Does my blend go into the shared database?
No, and it never will. One person will ever own it, so a name in everybody's dropdown would be a bottle nobody can verify.
When something is wrong5
A red bar says "That did not save".
It means what is on your screen is not what is stored. Do not reload, because that is what loses it. Press Save again. The bar does not dismiss, because only a successful save makes it untrue.
The brand dropdown has the same brand twice.
Two spellings of one producer. If one is on your own bottles, open that bottle, press Edit and change the brand. The shared list cannot fix your own record.
Why is my bottle "yours alone"?
Nobody else on the pilot has added it yet. That is fine, and most of a good shelf is unusual. The shared database grows from what people actually own, so it is thin at the start and fills in as more people join.
A dropdown says something with "(as stored)" after it.
That bottle holds a value the dropdown has no option for, usually from a spreadsheet import. It is shown so that saving keeps it. An earlier version blanked it and wrote the field away on the next Save. Pick a real option if you want it tidied. Leaving it alone changes nothing.
How do I tell Scott something is wrong, or ask for something?
Press Feedback in the strip at the top of any tab, write it, and press Send. It goes straight to Scott with the tab you were on and the build you are running, so you only need to say what happened. If it does not send, it says why and keeps what you wrote.
Your account8
I only collect wine. Can I hide the rest?
Yes. Tools → Your data → What you collect, and untick what you do not collect. The tab goes away and nothing is deleted. Tick it again and everything in it is exactly as you left it. At least one has to stay on.
Can I put it on my phone's home screen?
Yes. On an iPhone, open it in Safari, press Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, Chrome offers Install app from its menu. It then opens full screen like an app. It still needs a connection to load your collection.
Where do I record the shop?
Bought from, on all three forms. Once you have typed a shop it is offered again, so the spelling stays the same and you can find everything from one shop later.
How do I see this again?
Tools → Your data → Show it again brings back the welcome card. This FAQ lives in the same place.
I forgot my password.
On the sign-in screen, type your email address in the box and click Forgot password? underneath. You get an emailed link to set a new one. The mail comes from Google and not from us, so check your spam folder. It arrives from a `firebaseapp.com` address and some providers file it there. Nothing is lost either way, because your collection is tied to the account and not the password.
I clicked Forgot password and nothing arrived.
Check spam first. If it is not there, the likeliest cause is that the address you typed is not the one the account was created with. Even one character off, and the screen still says the mail was sent. Try any other address you might have used. If none of them work, tell Scott instead of making a second account.
Where are the Terms and the Privacy Policy?
Tools → Account, under the delete button, and on the sign-up screen. They open in a new tab.
How do I delete my account?
Tools tab, then Account, then Delete my account. You type your email address and your password, because nobody can undo it afterwards, and the screen offers a backup download first. It removes your collection, every photograph you uploaded, your usage records, any public share link and your login, straight away. Facts about products you added to the shared catalogue stay, because they describe the bottle and not you, and backups keep deleted data for up to 98 days. The Privacy Policy has the detail.
™
™
