The Distilled Decimal System

Vol. I  ·  Edition MMXXVI A Working Reference Coach House  ·  Louisville, KY

A taxonomy for the well-ordered back bar, after the manner of Mr. Dewey. Three numbers, two decimals — one address per bottle.

v.3.4 · The Three Layers Compiled at 1235 E. Oak St. — Coach House

§ 0 · The Problem

Spirits have categories.

What they lack is an address.

The spirits world is, contrary to first impression, deeply categorized at the regulatory level. The U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) maintains the Standards of Identity in 27 CFR Part 5, defining what may be called bourbon, what counts as rye, what qualifies as straight, with requirements as specific as the mash bill, the distillation proof, and the cooperage. The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 codify five legally distinct categories of Scotch. The Mexican NOM governs Tequila. Cognac is bound by AOC. American Single Malt entered the Standards in 2024. These are real, enforceable, and impressively rigorous frameworks.

What none of them do is give an individual bottle a permanent identifier. TTB tells you that Maker's Mark qualifies as a wheated bourbon — it does not assign Maker's Mark a number. The regulatory frameworks define the boxes with precision but stop at the box. Below the level of category, every bottle's identity dissolves into brand naming, packaging variants, and importer catalogs that contradict each other. The same expression appears under three different names depending on who's referencing it. Discontinued bottlings drift into folklore. There is no shared address space.

The consequence is that data does not travel. Cellar trackers, bar inventory tools, and tasting note apps each invent their own schemas. Recommendation engines have nothing structural to operate on. Comparison across producers requires laborious manual matching. Discovery defaults to whatever marketing surfaces. Categorically, spirits are well-organized; at the level of the individual bottle, they are not addressable.

The Distilled Decimal System adds the missing layer: an enumeration on top of an existing taxonomy. The categories belong to the regulators. The address belongs to the system.

§ I · The System

Three numbers, two decimals.

The Distilled Decimal System borrows its skeleton from Melvil Dewey and adapts it for the back bar. Ten classes. One hundred divisions. One thousand sections. A universal brand registry. A clean call number that names what's in the glass, who made it, and which expression you're holding — in three numbers separated by two decimals.

The integer names the spirit. The first decimal names the brand, persistently, across every section the brand touches. The second decimal names the specific expression. Everything else — age, proof, ownership, importer, finish — lives on the catalog card, where it belongs. Nothing transactional gets encoded into the address.

⌗ Anatomy of a Call Number

How the address is built.

CCC.BBB.EEE

— I —

1__

Class

Broad family. Whiskey, gin, rum. Ten total.

— II —

11_

Division

Origin or sub-style within a class.

— III —

112

Section

Specific regional or stylistic identity.

— IV —

.047

Brand Universal

Three-digit global registry. One number per producer, forever.

— V —

.018

Expression

Section-relative bottling. Flagship is .001 in each section.

A Note on Scope

The Distilled Decimal System covers distilled spirits and their derivatives, including ready-to-drink premixed cocktails (Class 900). It does not cover wine or beer. Both deserve mature taxonomies of their own — wine's centered on appellation and vintage, beer's on style and brewery — and neither compresses cleanly into the Dewey logic. A back-bar reference need not be the only reference.

§ II · The Ten Classes

From 000 to 999.000 — 999

000 — 099

General & Reference

Theory · Process · History

010 Distillation020 History030 Aging & Cooperage040 Botanicals050 Cocktail Theory

100 — 199

Whiskey

Grain spirits, aged in oak

110 Scotch120 Irish130 Bourbon140 Rye150 Tennessee160 Japanese170 Canadian180 World190 Specialty

200 — 299

Gin

Juniper-led botanical spirits

210 London Dry220 Plymouth230 Old Tom240 Genever250 Contemporary260 Navy Strength270 Sloe & Flavored

300 — 399

Rum

Cane & molasses spirits

310 White320 Gold330 Aged / Añejo340 Dark350 Spiced360 Overproof370 Rhum Agricole380 Cachaça

400 — 499

Agave Spirits

Distilled from cooked agave

410 Blanco Tequila420 Reposado430 Añejo440 Extra Añejo450 Mezcal460 Raicilla470 Sotol480 Bacanora

500 — 599

Brandy

Distilled fruit, often aged

510 Cognac520 Armagnac530 American540 Pisco550 Calvados560 Eau-de-vie570 Grappa580 Brandy de Jerez

600 — 699

Vodka & Neutrals

High-proof, near-neutral spirits

610 Grain620 Potato630 Grape640 Wheat650 Rye Vodka660 Flavored670 Aquavit680 Korn

700 — 799

Liqueurs & Cordials

Sweetened, flavored compounds

710 Herbal720 Fruit730 Nut & Seed740 Cream750 Coffee & Cacao760 Floral770 Anise780 Crème de —

800 — 899

Aperitifs, Fortified & Regional

Wine-based · Indigenous spirits

810 Dry Vermouth820 Sweet Vermouth830 Amaro840 Fernet850 Quinquina860 Sherry & Port870 Baijiu & Soju880 Shōchū & Arak890 Absinthe & Anise

900 — 999

RTDs & Premixed

Ready-to-drink, canned & bottled

910 Single-Spirit RTDs920 Cocktail RTDs930 Hard Seltzers940 Wine-Based RTDs950 Hybrid & Functional960 Frozen / Pouched

⌗ Worked Example

Class 100 · Whiskey100 — 199 · The Longest Shelf

Class 100

Whiskey

100 — 199 · the longest shelf

Whiskey is the densest class in this system, and the place where the universal brand registry pays its keenest dividend. Brown-Forman's Old Forester appears across four sections — bourbon, rye, bottled-in-bond, heritage — and carries the same brand number 047 in every one. The constellation is legible at a glance.

110 Scotch Whisky UK · Aged ≥3 yr

111

Single Malt — HighlandGlenmorangie, Dalmore, Oban

112

Single Malt — SpeysideMacallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour

113

Single Malt — IslayLagavulin, Ardbeg, Laphroaig

114

Single Malt — LowlandAuchentoshan, Glenkinchie

115

Single Malt — CampbeltownSpringbank, Glen Scotia

116

Single Malt — IslandHighland Park, Talisker

117

Blended ScotchJohnnie Walker, Chivas, Famous Grouse

118

Blended MaltMonkey Shoulder, Compass Box

119

Single GrainHaig Club, Cameron Brig

120 Irish Whiskey Ireland · Triple-distilled tradition

121

Single Pot StillRedbreast, Green Spot

122

Single Malt IrishBushmills 10, Tyrconnell

123

Blended IrishJameson, Tullamore D.E.W.

124

Single Grain IrishTeeling Single Grain

125

Peated IrishConnemara

130 Bourbon USA · Min. 51% corn · New charred oak

131

Kentucky StraightBuffalo Trace, Wild Turkey 101, Old Forester 86

132

High-Rye BourbonFour Roses, Bulleit, Old Grand-Dad

133

Wheated BourbonMaker's Mark, Weller, Pappy Van Winkle

134

Single BarrelBlanton's, Eagle Rare 10

135

Small BatchBooker's, Knob Creek, Baker's

136

Bottled-in-BondHenry McKenna 10, Old Forester 1897, Heaven Hill 7

137

Cask StrengthStagg Jr., Maker's Cask

138

Craft / Non-KY BourbonGarrison Brothers, Westland

139

Heritage RecipeOld Forester 1920, Michter's US★1

140 American Rye USA · Min. 51% rye

141

Kentucky-Style RyeRittenhouse, Wild Turkey, Old Forester Rye

142

Pennsylvania / MonongahelaDad's Hat, Old Overholt

143

MGP-Sourced RyeBulleit Rye, Templeton, Redemption

144

100% RyePikesville, Whistlepig, Sazerac 18

145

Bottled-in-Bond RyeRittenhouse BIB, Pikesville 110

150 Tennessee Whiskey USA · Lincoln County Process

151

Standard TennesseeJack Daniel's Old No. 7

152

Single Barrel TennesseeJack Daniel's Single Barrel

153

Tennessee RyeJack Daniel's Rye, George Dickel Rye

154

Heritage TennesseeGeorge Dickel No. 12, Uncle Nearest 1856

160 Japanese Whisky Japan · Scotch-influenced craft

161

Single Malt JapaneseYamazaki, Hakushu, Yoichi

162

Blended JapaneseHibiki, Toki, Nikka From the Barrel

163

Mizunara-AgedYamazaki Mizunara, Chichibu

164

Craft / New WaveMars Komagatake, Akkeshi

170 Canadian Whisky Canada · Multi-grain blends

171

Blended CanadianCrown Royal, Canadian Club

172

100% Canadian RyeLot No. 40, Alberta Premium

173

Premium / Cask SeriesCrown Royal XR, Forty Creek

180 World Whiskey Outside the historic five

181

Indian WhiskyAmrut, Paul John, Rampur

182

TaiwaneseKavalan

183

AustralianSullivans Cove, Starward

184

European (non-UK)Mackmyra, Stauning, Penderyn

190 Specialty & Finished Cross-category & experimental

191

Sherry-Cask FinishedGlenDronach 18, Aberlour A'bunadh

192

Port-Cask FinishedGlenmorangie Quinta Ruban

193

Wine-Cask FinishedGlenmorangie Nectar d'Or

194

Peated Non-ScotchWestland Peated, Smokehead

195

Independent BottlingsCompass Box, Gordon & MacPhail

199

NAS & ExperimentalOctomore, Glenmorangie Signet

⌗ The Decimal Apparatus

A brand is a constellation.

139.047.04

SectionHeritage Recipe Bourbon

Brand · UniversalOld Forester (047)

Expression1920 Prohibition Style

Worked Examples

112.018.018

Macallan Sherry Oak 18Speyside · Brand 018 · 18yr expression

133.023.001

Maker's Mark OriginalWheated · Brand 023 · flagship

113.005.016

Lagavulin 16Islay · Brand 005 · 16yr flagship

450.112.001

Del Maguey VidaMezcal · Brand 112 · entry expression

920.247.002

On The Rocks Old FashionedCocktail RTD · Brand 247 · second expression

161.031.012

Yamazaki 12Japanese SM · Brand 031 · 12yr expression

123.028.001

Jameson OriginalBlended Irish · Brand 028 · flagship

310.078.001

Bacardi SuperiorWhite Rum · Brand 078 · flagship

410.091.001

Don Julio BlancoBlanco Tequila · Brand 091 · flagship

510.131.001

Hennessy VSCognac · Brand 131 · flagship

Rules of the Decimal

Rule I · The Integer Names the Spirit

The three-digit class number always identifies what is in the glass. A 133 is always a wheated bourbon. The integer is canonical and immovable.

Rule II · The Brand Number is Universal

Each producer receives one three-digit number, registered once and used everywhere. Old Forester is 047 in bourbon, in rye, in bottled-in-bond — across every section the brand touches.

Rule III · Expressions are Section-Relative

The final three digits enumerate expressions within the brand-section pairing. Flagship in each section takes .001. A brand may use .001 in multiple sections — once for its bourbon flagship, once for its rye flagship.

Rule IV · Metadata Lives on the Card

Age, proof, finish, mash bill, and bottling date are recorded as metadata on the catalog card — never encoded into the call number itself.

Rule V · The Permanence Test

Anything that can change without the spirit itself changing belongs on the card, not in the code. Ownership, importer, distribution, packaging, and current proof are all transactional — the call number stays steady while the world around the bottle shifts.

Rule VI · Brand is the Atomic Unit of Identity

Below the spirit category, the brand is the smallest unit with stable identity. Expressions, finishes, and age statements are brand-mediated and live below it. Parent companies and corporate portfolios are too unstable to encode and live above it — on the card, not in the number.

⌗ Brand as Constellation

Old Forester

Brand 047 · Brown-Forman, Louisville KY · one number, four sections, eight expressions

131.047.001 Original 86 KY Straight

131.047.002 100 Proof KY Straight

136.047.001 1897 Bottled-in-Bond BIB Bourbon

139.047.001 1870 Original Batch Heritage

139.047.002 1910 Old Fine Whisky Heritage

139.047.003 117 Series Heritage

139.047.004 1920 Prohibition Style Heritage

141.047.001 Rye 100 Proof KY-Style Rye

⌗ Brand Registry · Specimen

A small selection from the universal registry.

Numbers are permanent and travel with the producer across every section in which they appear.

001Buffalo Trace Distilling

002Wild Turkey

003Heaven Hill

004Four Roses

005Lagavulin

006Bulleit

007Jack Daniel's

008Pappy Van Winkle

009Weller

012Glenfiddich

015Glenmorangie

018The Macallan

021Ardbeg

023Maker's Mark

028Jameson

031Yamazaki

034Hibiki

041Woodford Reserve

047Old Forester

052Michter's

061Tanqueray

064Beefeater

078Bacardi

091Don Julio

093Casamigos

112Del Maguey

131Hennessy

158Fernet-Branca

203Aperol

247On The Rocks

⌗ What Stays Off the Code

Two columns. One permanent, one mutable.

The left names what the call number captures permanently. The right names what is recorded on the catalog card — facts that may shift over time without altering what the spirit fundamentally is.

In the Code · Permanent

●Class · the broad family of spirit

●Division · origin or major sub-style

●Section · specific regional or stylistic identity

●Brand · the producer's persistent identity

●Expression · the specific bottling within that brand-section

On the Card · Mutable

○Parent company & current ownership

○Distillery of origin & bottling location

○Importer & distribution territory

○Age statement, proof, mash bill

○Cask program, finish, batch number

○Bottling date, release year, allocation status

○Packaging, label design, current price

“ The juice does not change when the lawyers change. ”

§ III · On Discovery

The Call Number is a Graph Address.

The deepest payoff of the three-decimal structure is not catalog organization — it is traversal. Every call number is simultaneously a position on three intersecting axes of identity, and each axis is a path you can walk to find related bottles. The spirit that begins as a single coordinate becomes the center of a small constellation, and the constellation connects to others.

131.047.001 Old Forester Original 86 SHARES SECTION · 131 131.001.001 Buffalo Trace 131.002.002 Wild Turkey 101 131.052.001 Michter's US★1 SHARES BRAND · 047 136.047.001 1897 BIB 139.047.004 1920 Prohibition 141.047.001 Rye 100 SHARES METADATA · 100 PROOF 133.004.002 Larceny BP 136.003.001 McKenna BIB 145.001.001 Rittenhouse BIB

From a single coordinate — Old Forester Original 86 — three paths radiate. Section reveals its siblings in Kentucky Straight Bourbon. Brand reveals its sibling expressions across the Old Forester portfolio. Metadata connects it to other 100-proof bottlings across producers and sections — a relationship the call number itself does not encode but the catalog card makes queryable.

Three Paths from One Coordinate

— Axis I —

Section

CCC.BBB.EEE

Hold the section steady; vary the brand. Reveals the family of spirits sharing a regulatory and stylistic identity. The shelf you'd build if you were stocking a single style with care.

— Axis II —

Brand

CCC.BBB.EEE

Hold the brand steady; vary the section. Reveals the producer's full portfolio across the categories they touch. The constellation that tells you what a producer believes about whiskey, gin, or agave.

— Axis III —

Metadata

[ on the card ]

The implicit axis. Cross-cutting paths through proof, age, mash bill, region, distillery, or finish — relationships that live on the catalog card and become traversable through queries. The discovery surface the call number unlocks but does not contain.

What this means in practice: the catalog is not a list to be scrolled but a graph to be walked. A bartender comparing a new bourbon to ones already on the shelf has a structural starting point. A collector tracking a producer's evolution has a vertical query. A retailer building a "if you like this, try these" recommendation has three honest axes to draw from instead of a marketing campaign. And an AI agent asked "what is this bottle adjacent to?" has a finite, well-defined neighborhood to traverse rather than an open-ended search of the internet.

§ IV · Specimen Cards

From the Catalog.

139.047.004

Old Forester
1920 Prohibition

Brown-Forman, Louisville

Section · 139Heritage

Brand · 04757.5% ABV

NASWhisky Row

141.047.001

Old Forester
Rye 100

Brown-Forman, Louisville

Section · 141KY Rye

Brand · 04750% ABV

65% RyeFlagship

112.018.018

The Macallan
Sherry Oak 18

Easter Elchies, Speyside

Section · 112Speyside SM

Brand · 01843% ABV

Sherry Cask18 yr

133.008.023

Pappy Van Winkle
Family Reserve 23

Buffalo Trace, Frankfort KY

Section · 133Wheated

Brand · 00847.8% ABV

23 yrAnnual

450.112.001

Del Maguey
Vida

San Luis del Río, Oaxaca

Section · 450Mezcal

Brand · 11242% ABV

EspadínPit-roasted

920.247.002

On The Rocks
Old Fashioned

Beam Suntory, USA

Section · 920Cocktail RTD

Brand · 24735% ABV

Knob Creek375ml

§ V · Three Layers

The Architecture.

A canonical identifier is the visible part of a deeper architecture. To be useful in an AI-mediated world — where agents recognize, reason about, and recommend across a category — a system needs three layers, each doing a job the others cannot. The Distilled Decimal System provides the first; the catalog card supplies the second; the database, when built, will produce the third.

— Layer I —

Identity

The Stable ID

131.047.001

A short, opaque, permanent address. Its only jobs are uniqueness and exact-match retrieval. It never changes once assigned — not when the brand is sold, not when the proof is adjusted, not when the bottle is rebranded.

Answers

Is this the same thing I saw before?

In the DDS

The three-decimal call number itself. Encodes structural position; functions as a database key; tokenizes cheaply for AI consumption.

— Layer II —

Semantics

The Description

classwhiskey › bourbon › wheated

producermaker's-mark

expressionoriginal-86

mashbillcorn 70 · wheat 16 · barley 14

proof90

regionkentucky · loretto

A rich, structured representation in tokens both humans and AI already understand. Every attribute carries pre-loaded meaning from the language the AI was trained on — wheated, kentucky, bourbon arrive with billions of training examples worth of context.

Answers

What is this thing, and what are its qualities?

In the DDS

The catalog card. Class, brand, expression, mashbill, proof, region, age, finish, status — natural language attributes drawn from a controlled vocabulary so the same word always means the same thing.

— Layer III —

Spatiality

The Relationships

produced_by →p.047

parent_company →c.012

similar_to →[sp.131047001,

sp.133012001, sp.133023001]

embedding →[vector · 768d]

Embedding vectors and typed graph edges. The vectors place each entity in a high-dimensional semantic space where proximity means similarity. The edges encode explicit relationships — producer, parent company, regional sibling, stylistic neighbor.

Answers

What is this thing related to, and how?

In the DDS

Computed from Layer II. The graph structure that makes Discovery (§ III) possible — the three traversal axes, the constellation behavior, the cross-cutting metadata paths.

⌗ Why Three Layers

Recognition, understanding, association.

Without Layer I,

there is no canonical reference. The same bottle appears under different names across systems, and data cannot travel.

Without Layer II,

AI cannot reason. The identifier is opaque; every query requires a lookup before any thinking can begin.

Without Layer III,

there is no discovery. You can find a bottle, but you cannot find things like a bottle. The graph collapses into a list.

Three operations, three layers. Real intelligence about a domain requires all three.

§ VI · A Practical Note

On Use & Extensibility.

The system is designed to be a working tool, not a finished monument. What follows is a brief account of where it earns its keep, and how it grows without breaking.

i.

Practical uses

Personal collection & tasting notes

A stable identifier per bottle. Notes you wrote on 112.018.018 in 2024 still apply to that same bottle in 2030, regardless of label redesign or importer change.

Bar & restaurant inventory

A shared schema across staff. New hires read a call number and immediately know the spirit family, the producer, and the expression — without memorizing the menu.

Retail & merchandising

Shelf organization that respects the underlying logic of the spirit, not just the brand alphabet. Wheated bourbons next to other wheated bourbons.

Discovery & recommendation

"You like 133.023.001? Here's everything else in section 133." A structural recommendation, not a marketing one.

Machine-readable spirit identity

A canonical identifier that travels cleanly through APIs, databases, and AI agents. The bottle becomes addressable.

ii.

How it extends

New brands

Assigned the next available number in the universal registry. Once issued, a brand number is permanent — even if the brand is discontinued, sold, or renamed. Numbers are retired, never reassigned.

New expressions

The next available three-digit slot within the brand-section pairing. Limited editions and one-offs are encoded the same way as flagship bottlings.

Emerging styles

New sections can be added within an existing division (sections 196–199 in Whiskey are reserved for this) or, when warranted, new divisions within a class.

Cross-references

A spirit that legitimately spans two sections (a finished bourbon that's also bottled-in-bond, for instance) is filed in its primary section with a cross-reference noted on the card. The call number itself is not duplicated.

Discontinued bottlings

Numbers stay reserved, like retired jersey numbers. 133.008.023 always means Pappy 23 — even if it's no longer in production. Historical reference is part of the system's value.

Governance

The registry is centrally maintained. Anyone may propose additions; the registrar adjudicates conflicts, retires numbers, and publishes updates. Stability is the chief obligation.

The system is not a final word. It is a working reference — useful in proportion to how widely it is adopted, and refined in proportion to the friction it encounters in real use. What matters is that the address is stable, the logic is legible, and the door is left open for the next bottle, the next style, the next decade.

§ VII · What's Unfinished

Open Questions.

This document is a concept, not a finished system. The categories are sketched, the rules are working hypotheses, and large parts of what would be required to make the Distilled Decimal System real have not yet been answered. Listing what's open is part of the work — and being honest about it now is cheaper than being right about everything later. What follows are the questions that came up while drafting, grouped by where they bite hardest.

i.

Defining the categories

Who has standing

The category boundaries in this draft are one careful set of guesses. A real version requires subject-matter authorities — distillers, master blenders, importers, retailers, historians — and probably alignment with the agencies that already write the standards (TTB, the Scotch Whisky Association, the CRT for Tequila, BNIC for Cognac). What does a working group look like, and who has the standing to call a section closed?

The atomic unit of "brand"

Rule VI calls brand the smallest stable identity. It is — most of the time. Contract bottlers, sourced juice, and label-without-a-distillery cases (Pappy at Buffalo Trace, On The Rocks at Beam Suntory, importer-led mezcal labels) sit awkwardly between producer and brand. The registry has to rule on each case and stay consistent across decades.

Governance & funding

A registry is only as durable as the institution that maintains it. ISBN works because Bowker and ISO are funded. DDS would need an answer to who owns the registry, how it pays for itself, how disputes are adjudicated, and what happens if the original maintainer steps away. Stability is the chief obligation, and stability needs a home.

Coexistence with existing identifiers

DDS numbering is independent of TTB class/type codes (which use overlapping numerals — Class 2, Type 130). A real version would need to disambiguate explicitly and probably live alongside SCC/UPC, GTIN, and trade identifiers rather than try to replace them.

ii.

Legal vs. cultural categories

Where the law stops, the language continues

Some sections in this draft — Heritage Recipe, Small Batch, Single Barrel, Cask Strength — are marketing categories rather than regulatory ones. They reflect how people talk and shop, not what statute defines. Should the system encode both, prefer the legal definition, or prefer the lived one? When they conflict, who wins?

Categories that move

Bottled-in-Bond is statutory in the US; "Heritage" is not. American Single Malt entered the Standards in 2024. Japanese Whisky's category boundaries shifted in 2021. The system has to absorb that motion without rewriting numbers already in circulation.

Jurisdictional difference

A category that is legally defined in one country may be culturally defined in another. A single number space has to make a call about which definition is canonical, and how to handle the others.

RTDs as a format, not an ingredient

Class 900 organizes by format (canned, premixed) rather than by what's in the can. That's a deliberate choice but a contestable one — it makes the call number less informative about contents. Whether RTDs deserve their own class, or should be cross-referenced from their base spirit's class, is open.

iii.

Expressions, picks & reformulations

Single-barrel picks

A retailer's single-barrel pick of Eagle Rare and the standard Eagle Rare share a label but, for the collectors who care most, are different bottles. Are they the same expression with different metadata, or different expressions? The system can defend either answer — it has to pick one and live with the consequences. Three-digit expressions buy headroom for either choice; they don't decide which is right.

Reformulations under the same name

Bottlings get quietly reformulated — proof shifts, mash bills change, age statements drop. When does a recipe change rise to a new expression number, and when does it stay metadata on the card? The honest answer is "it depends," but a registrar will need a written rule.

Discontinued vs. dormant

The doc says discontinued numbers stay reserved like retired jersey numbers. But some bottlings disappear and quietly return; others are revived under new ownership with a different recipe. The line between "retired" and "back" needs a policy, not a vibe.

None of these are weaknesses to be fixed before the document is shared. They are the kinds of questions any taxonomy meets when it leaves the page. The point of publishing in this state is to find out which questions matter most to the people closest to the work — and to let the answers shape what comes next.

⌗

A Note from Coach House

Whatever its flaws, the question behind this document is one we expect to keep meeting. The way a person comes to understand a domain — through repetition, taste, the slow accumulation of stories and exceptions — does not always travel cleanly into the structured representations an AI agent can reason over. Spirits are one case among many. There are categories full of rich, hard-won human understanding — cigars, coffee, recipes, vinyl, vintage furniture, plants, cookware, tools — that resist easy machine-readable shape. As more of the work of recognition, comparison, and recommendation moves through AI, the gap between how we hold knowledge in our heads and how an agent holds it in a vector becomes a place where useful work piles up. Bridging that gap — taking what we know intuitively and giving it a structure both a person and an agent can recognize — is likely to matter for a long while. The Distilled Decimal System is one small attempt at that kind of translation. We expect there will be others.

Coach House · Louisville

— a working reference, not a final word —

DDS · v.3.4 · 2026