Knowledge, with a source.

What is here today

1779 distillery records, 882 named expressions, 150 brands and 23 companies. Physical sites span 72 countries and territories; 1,483 have supported map coordinates. This is a substantial starting inventory, not a census of every distillery or bottle. Country names follow geographic map units, including constituent countries and territories.

Expression and flavor coverage

The current catalog contains 761 whisky expressions and 517 whisky expressions with attributed tasting profiles. There is a documented production link from at least one expression to 178 of 1,779 recorded sites (10.01%). 1,601 sites still lack such a link. The denominator includes historical sites and sites whose current operations have not been assessed.

The 10 September source expansion reviewed 229 expressions across 73 producer source hosts. It added grain recipes, cask treatments, maturation details, explicitly stated strengths and producer tasting notes where available. Regional and edition-specific details remain scoped to their cited source. Unknown traits are left unknown.

A broader acquisition pass checked 940 recorded producer hosts, found 165 public product feeds and staged 4,333 normalized candidates for review. These candidates include unresolved products and are separate from the approved catalog. Three feeds are partial. A failed feed check does not mean a distillery has no expressions.

The goal of a documented expression for every producing distillery is not yet met. Site production status, complete portfolios, sourced spirits, multi-site producers and historical releases still require research. Product listings alone do not establish where a spirit was distilled.

Download the release coverage audit and site-by-site gaps · Current coverage with editorial changes · Download product candidates for review

US permit reconciliation

The TTB list linked from its official permittee page is dated 8 September 2026, despite the download URL containing “2025-04”. It contains 5,556 rows and distinct permits, all classified as Distilled Spirits Plant. The file does not distinguish distilling from bottling or processing, and does not provide production, operating-status or coordinate fields.

This pass adds 19 independently corroborated production sites across 12 states and enriches 77 existing records with 77 dated permit matches. US coverage rises from 229 to 248 site records and from 221 to 240 map placements. Global map coverage rises from 1,360 to 1,379.

5,460 permit rows remain unresolved, including potential additional distillers, bottlers/processors, address changes and multiple permits. They are retained in the downloadable review queue and excluded from new catalog placements pending evidence; they are not classified as non-distillers. A permit holder is not automatically a brand owner or corporate parent. No bottle-to-distillery connection or operating status is inferred from this list.

Each added site has producer evidence of beverage production and a matching named OpenStreetMap premises address. Coordinates come from that source geometry, never from a city or ZIP centroid. Existing record IDs and personal collection references remain intact. For example, the permit at Heaven Hill’s former Bardstown campus does not change its historical distilling status. Two Jack Daniel permits at one address remain a grouped review question, not two new sites.

Download all permit matches, evidence and unresolved candidates · Download the retained TTB CSV · TTB source and date

Which places are on the map?

The current directory has 1,779 distillery records: 1,483 mapped and 296 without a resolved site coordinate. Nine previously published records have site-identity warnings and are withheld from the map. Their record IDs and personal references remain available.

Before the TTB pass, the map had 1,248 markers. The earlier map review added 120 supported placements and withheld eight questionable existing placements, for a net gain of 112. The directory gained 122 distillery records and one company record. This is coverage of our source inventory, not a percentage of the world’s distilleries.

Most unmapped records lack a coordinate in Wikidata (180); 42 have multiple coordinate statements requiring site-specific resolution, and one has unsuitable coordinate precision. The remaining records need site-identity or precise-location corroboration. The map lists matching unlocated records separately. A country, city, company office or bottle brand is never used as a substitute pin.

Why Jim Beam and Heaven Hill were hard to find

Jim Beam’s Clermont site was withheld even though OpenStreetMap supplied an explicit whisky-distillery subtype. The importer read product tags but ignored that subtype. The rule now considers both throughout the inventory. The separate Booker Noe site in Boston is documented by the producer and Kentucky DEP; its precise coordinates still need corroboration, so it appears in the unlocated list.

Heaven Hill was already mapped in Louisville, but under a company-like name with an approximate coordinate. That existing ID now identifies Bernheim explicitly, with company history separated. The former Bardstown site is historical; it must not be confused with the new Heaven Hill Springs distillery, which began production in April 2025 and remains unlocated until a precise coordinate is corroborated.

Source and screening limitations

The original inventory queried craft distilleries, missing some sites tagged as industrial distilleries. The broader query adds those candidates; it still requires beverage evidence and rejects industrial alcohol, unsupported ancillary facilities and ambiguous identities. Automated homepage checks can miss age-gated, unavailable or non-English pages. Known omissions are not evidence that a place is closed or does not exist.

Download the before/after coverage audit ↗ · Download candidate exclusions and merges ↗

The expression is the record

Routine batches, annual editions and packaging changes belong within a named expression. A separate variant is used only for a defining maturation or aging process, linked to its base expression. Strengths, recipes and cask details that apply to one edition are labelled with that scope.

A place is different from a brand

Distilleries represent physical beverage-spirit production sites. Industrial-only alcohol plants are excluded. Distilling, maturation, blending, bottling, contract production, legal ownership and corporate parentage are separate relationships. We publish a relationship only when supported, and preserve effective dates where documented.

Facts and their limits

The original profiles use producer and bottler sources. The expanded inventory combines Wikidata statements with mapped OpenStreetMap craft sites. We screen entity types, beverage evidence, industrial-only exclusions, duplicate identities and location conflicts. Where available, linked producer websites provide an additional automated beverage-business check. This does not certify every site’s current operations, address or complete product range.

Source-listed inventory and portfolio records are visibly labelled. Unknown production, spirit categories, dates and status stay blank. A historic source statement does not establish the condition of a site today. Map coordinates are source locations or approximate geometry centres, not visitor entrances. Country assignment may be derived from those coordinates with Natural Earth boundaries.

Official group portfolios supply named brands and expressions. Portfolio membership is distinct from legal ownership; a corporate brand listing does not prove where a bottle was distilled. Regional availability, discontinued products, routine editions and packaging changes can vary. No prices, tasting prose, production volumes or ownership chains are invented.

Coverage and gaps

Coverage is strongest in Europe and North America. Small producers, non-Latin names, recently opened sites, undocumented historical sites and Asian, African and Latin American portfolios remain uneven. Many mapped distilleries still have no named expressions documented here. Beverage categories are added only where a source supports them; an unclassified site is not assigned a category from the country it is in.

Absinthe · Agave spirits · Anise & traditional spirits · Aquavit · Armagnac · Awamori · Brandy · Brandy & fruit spirits · Cachaça · Calvados · Cognac · Feni · Fruit brandy · Genever · Gin · Grappa · Korn · Liqueur · Mezcal · Other distilled spirits · Rum · Shochu · Soju · Spirits · Tequila · Unaged spirits · Vodka · Whisky

Data sources and reuse

The mapped inventory credits © OpenStreetMap contributors and is provided under ODbL 1.0. Wikidata structured statements are CC0; Natural Earth map units are public domain. The combined inventory download includes source provenance and its derived fields. Personal bottle records are separate and never included.

Download the reference inventory and provenance ↗

Producer and distributor pages contribute factual names and narrowly sourced facts. Their branding, photographs and marketing text are not licensed as part of the inventory. Photography: Ardbeg distillery by ErikRombaut, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons (cropped for the opening banner); Springbank by Leslie Barrie / Geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0. Both retain their linked credits. Research snapshots were retrieved on 8–10 September 2026; individual linked sources may describe earlier periods.

Anonymous site measurement

From the first tracked visit after this release, this site measures public page views, daily unique browser sessions, search results/no-results and coarse browser error signals. Daily counts are estimates, not exact people or deduplicated monthly visitors. A signed session cookie is converted to a daily hash; no IP addresses, search text, email or collection content are stored. Metrics are retained for 90 days. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control are respected. Admin and collection pages are excluded.

Your collection

Your bottles and manual distillery marks are stored privately for your signed-in identity. Import a CSV downloaded from Google Sheets; there is no live Google account connection. Review the column mapping and proposed matches before saving. Unmatched rows remain in your collection for later resolution.

Retail price stays retail price. Market value is your entered value, not a verified appraisal. Notes, opened/sealed state, raw proof and age remain personal observations and do not change the public reference records. Proof is preserved as written; no convention is assumed or converted.

Editorial and portfolio sources

Each inventory profile links its own source records. The sources below support the editorial and portfolio entries.