Everything 3DC does, and how to use it

Getting started

3DC Tasting Notes digitizes the 3 Drunken Celts paper notebook. You taste a dram, then record it four ways (three quick measures, a personal grade, your notes, and a little context), and over time the app turns those entries into search, insights, and a picture of your palate. Then it gets playful: blind flights, a drill that tests your own consistency, guided tasting journeys, and a way to compare palates with friends.

On first open you'll see a short four-page intro (welcome, the three rating axes, how the A–F grade works, and the other ways to taste). On the last page you have two choices: Get Started to reach the Home screen, or Try with sample tastings (described next). That intro appears only once.

Want to look around first? Try with sample tastings on the last intro page loads eight sample tastings and a sample friend's palate card, so Shelf Check, The Snug and Insights have something to show. A banner on Home, and Remove sample tastings in Settings, delete exactly those samples again; your own tastings stay.

The screens

Home is where you start, and it scrolls. From top to bottom: Start a Tasting, The Library, Insights, then Blind Flight, Shelf Check, Consistency Drill, Curricula, and The Snug. The gear (top-left) opens Settings, the ? opens the full help index, and the arrows icon lets you drag the cards into your own order, which is remembered. Until your first tasting is saved, only Blind Flight shows below Insights; the other four cards appear after it.

A typical tasting session

1. Pour. On Home, tap Start a Tasting (or + in The Library).
2. Optionally Read Label to auto-fill the maker and age, Scan Barcode for identity, or just type the Distillery / Bottler.
3. Nose it → dictate or type Nose. Sip → Flavor. Wait → Finish.
4. Tap the Viscosity / Boldness / Length of Story from 1 to 5.
5. Give it a Personal Taste grade (A–F, then the ± row).
6. Tap a few Flavor Tags; set the bottle fill; add a photo and price if you like.
7. Tap Save. Later, browse The Library, check Insights, or Share a card with the crew.

The rating method

3DC rates a dram four ways: three semi-objective measures plus one subjective grade.

The three axes (1 = low, 5 = high)

• Viscosity: how thick or oily it feels in the mouth. 1 = thin/watery · 5 = thick/syrupy.
• Boldness: how intensely the flavor hits. 1 = gentle/delicate · 5 = intense/assertive.
• Length of Story: how long the finish lingers. 1 = short · 5 = lengthy.

These are meant to be semi-objective: two honest tasters should land close. They drive the radar chart on the Detail screen and the trends in Insights.

Personal Taste: the grade

A letter A, B, C, D, or F (there is no E; it matches the paper notebook and US letter grades) with an optional +, −, or nothing. So B+ beats B beats B−. This one is purely your verdict.

Logging a tasting

Open Capture from Start a Tasting or the + in The Library. Only the ratings and grade have defaults, and everything else is optional, so log as much or as little as the moment deserves.

The fields

Tap Save (top-right) to store it, or Cancel to discard. To change a saved tasting later, open it and tap the pencil. You can also add one photo of the bottle or the pour; it stays on your phone and, as noted under Backup, isn't part of backups.

Scan Barcode vs Read Label

These two buttons look similar but do very different things. This is the single most common point of confusion, so it's worth 20 seconds:

Why isn't a barcode enough to fill the name? Turning a barcode into a product name needs an online database, and 3DC deliberately has none. The label photo is read on your phone, and that's the field-fill path. On Android the scanner is Google's code scanner in Google Play services, which downloads a small module when the app is installed or the first time you scan.

Dictating notes

Tap the microphone on the Nose, Flavor, or Finish field to dictate hands-free. Your phone's own speech service transcribes what you say and adds it to the field, so there's no typing while your hands are on the glass.

Flavor tags

In Capture, the Flavor Tags section is a curated flavor wheel grouped into families: Fruit, Floral & Herbal, Sweet, Spice, Wood, Smoke & Peat, Grain, Nutty, Sherry & Wine, Coastal, Rich. It stays compact: tap a family to open its tags (one at a time; tap it again to close), then tap the tags that fit. Picked tags sit at the top with an × to remove them. Suggested from your notes offers tags whose words appear in your Nose, Flavor or Finish notes (simple word matching on your phone; nothing is sent anywhere); tap one to add it. Tags:

• show as chips on the Detail screen,
• are searchable and filterable in The Library,
• ride along in your JSON backup and CSV export,
• are what curricula match against.

Search, filter & sort

The Library is your whole collection. Find anything fast:

• Search: the search bar matches maker, event, region, age, category, notes, barcode, and flavor-tag names.
• Filter & Sort: the filter icon opens a sheet:
  • Sort by: Recently added · Tasting date · Grade (best first) · Name (A–Z).
  • Filter by: Category, Grade, Flavor tag (an entry must contain all the tags you pick), and Poured from (All · My bottles · Elsewhere).
• The filter icon shows when a filter or non-default sort is active: on Android a dot appears on it, and on iPhone the icon turns solid. Clear resets everything.
• Share (top-right) offers Shelf tags (PDF) and Share as dram pack for the tastings in view.
• While a blind flight is unfinished, a banner at the top lets you pick it up again.
• A small house icon at the start of a row's second line marks a tasting from your own bottle. Swipe a row right to switch it between My bottle and Elsewhere (tastings logged before this option count as My bottle, so this is the quick fix for old event tastings).
• Delete a tasting by swiping the row left. On iPhone, tap Delete and then confirm; on Android, the swipe asks you to confirm.

Bottle identity & re-tastes

A “bottle” is identified by its barcode (if you scanned one), otherwise by maker + age. On the Detail screen, the This Bottle section lets you:

• Log another tasting: starts a fresh Capture pre-filled with the bottle's identity (maker, category, region, age, barcode) but blank notes and ratings, so you can record a new session of the same bottle.
• Other tastings of this bottle: lists your past sessions of it; tap to jump between them and watch your impression evolve.

If you scan a barcode you've logged before, Capture gently warns you (“you've logged this before”). It never blocks you.

Bottle fill & the Oxidizing label

Bottles change once they're open, and 3DC keeps a modest record of that for your own bottles (tastings poured elsewhere stay out of all of it):

• Bottle fill (optional): how full the bottle was when you poured, set in Capture or on a blind pour.
• Opened / Finished / Bottle note: under This Bottle on the Detail screen, set the date you opened it, mark it Finished when it's gone, and keep a note (“gift from Fergus”).
• Bottle life: once you've tasted the same bottle more than once, a chart shows your grades over time, with a line saying when it peaked (for example “when the bottle was in its upper half”) and how long it has been open.
• Oxidizing: The Library puts this label on a bottle when your last two grades fell sharply (A to B+ counts; B+ to B doesn't), or when it has been open over 18 months and the latest pour found it under half full. Finished bottles never get it. It's a note about your own ratings, not advice.
• Open Bottles (in Insights): how many are open, the oldest, and the best performer right now. Tap it to see them in The Library. Open Bottles lists bottles you've given an Opened date (or a bottle note) on the Detail screen and haven't marked Finished. A low fill alone doesn't add one, although for Cellar Value any fill below 100% counts as opened.

Cellar value

For any bottle you can record, in Capture's Cellar Value section:

• Price paid: what it cost you.
• Market value: what you reckon it's worth now.

Both are optional and private. Insights totals them into a Cellar Value card: bottles valued, total paid, total market value, and unrealized gain/loss. It counts only your own bottles, and each bottle once (using the most recent price you entered), so a re-tasting never double-counts it and a bar pour never lands in your cellar. Once a bottle is opened (a fill below 100%, an Opened date, or Finished), it counts as $0 market value: an open bottle has no resale value, however full it is. It still counts in total paid. Gain/loss covers only your sealed bottles that have both a price paid and a market value.

Insights

The Insights card on Home opens your analytics. Depending on what you've logged, you'll see:

• Cellar Value: totals, if you've entered any prices.
• Open Bottles: what you have open, the oldest, and the best right now.
• Taste Trends: your average Viscosity/Boldness/Length-of-Story on a radar, your most-tasted category, and a distribution of your A–F grades.
• Consistency score: your Consistency Drill average (below).
• Palate Evolution: how your palate has drifted over time, then vs. now.
• Label Bias: how much the name on the bottle sways your grade.
• Compare: pick any two tastings for a side-by-side radar overlay and per-axis numbers.

Some cards need a little history before they light up. Palate Evolution, for example, asks for ten tastings spread over about six months. Keep logging and they fill in.

Blind Flights

Rate first, find out what it was after.

1. On Home, tap Blind Flight. Name the flight, choose a category and 2 to 8 pours, and leave Session on Solo (or pick Group, below).
2. Have a friend pour into numbered glasses, then tap Start Flight.
3. Each pour gives you the notebook form with the identity hidden: the three axes, Bottle fill, the grade, notes, and flavor tags. Save & next pour moves along.
4. Reveal. Name each pour by scanning its barcode, reading its label, picking from The Library, or typing the maker and age, with an optional price.
5. The results rank your pours by grade, show a small radar for each, and call out the price story if you entered prices (“the cheapest bottle won the night”). Share card sends the reveal card. Your pours become ordinary entries in The Library.

Group sessions: pass the phone

Set Session to Group and add up to eight guests (you're already in). After you've rated the pours, the phone becomes a pass-the-phone grid: pours down the side, you and your guests across the top. Tap any cell and hand the phone on; each guest rates that pour blind (three axes, a grade, one line of note) in about fifteen seconds. Fill cells in any order. A rated cell shows a check, not the grade: grades stay hidden until everyone, you included, has rated every pour, so nobody is swayed by an earlier guest. Tapping a rated cell before then opens a blank sheet that says “Already rated. Saving replaces the earlier rating.”

Then Reveal & results: for each pour you see everyone's radar overlaid, the group verdict (the most common grade), an agreement score, and the most contrarian rater. Share session card sends a summary. Guests' ratings live in the session only; they never appear in The Library or in your Insights.

Label bias

The Label Bias Index (in Insights) is the number no whisky magazine would print. It compares each of your blind ratings with your sighted ratings of the same bottle. After three such pairs it shows a number. A positive one means the label buys itself a grade bump from you; a number near zero earns you “certified label-proof”. To feed it, rate a bottle blind, reveal it, then taste it again with the label showing.

Shelf Check

On Home, tap Shelf Check, tap Scan barcode and/or Scan label (or type the maker in the …or type the maker box), then tap Check my Library. It compares the bottle with your own notebook, with no product database and no internet, and gives one of three verdicts:

• You've had this: your sessions and grades, the trend, when you last tasted it, what you paid (from your own bottles only), and a match score against your palate.
• You know this maker: how many sessions, your mean grade, your best and weakest.
• New to you: a palate summary, your reference points, and what you usually pay.

If you've imported friends' palate cards, it also names your closest taste twin. Log a tasting starts a new entry from the scan.

Consistency Drill & your consistency score

Your consistency score answers one question: can you rate the same dram the same way twice, blind?

1. On Home, tap Consistency Drill. The app picks one of your own bottles you've tasted before (longest ago first, skipping any drilled in the last 30 days). It needs one of your own bottles with a barcode, or a maker and age.
2. The hand-off. Someone else pours. A hand-off screen shows the person pouring which bottle to pour, then hides it, so you never see the name.
3. Rate the pour blind: three axes, grade, notes.
4. Reveal my drift scores how close you landed to the average of your own earlier notes (0–100), shows your drift on each axis, compares your old and new grade and ratings, and replays your earlier notes. The drill pour is saved to The Library as a blind entry.

After five drills, Insights shows your rolling mean over the last five. Once it reaches 90, the score rides along on the palate card you share in The Snug. It is self-reported: 3DC has no server to check it, so a friend's score is their word, not a certificate.

Sharing a tasting

On the Detail screen, tap Share and choose:

• Share card (image): a good-looking tasting card (logo, radar, grade, notes) as an image.
• Shelf tag (PNG) or Shelf tag (PDF): a print-friendly tag with a QR code carrying the bottle's ratings, maker, age, category and flavor tags (never your name, notes or photos). Scan that QR with your phone's camera app, or with Scan a friend's card in The Snug, and a new tasting opens pre-filled from the tag. Nothing is saved until you tap Save.
• Share as text: a plain-text summary for pasting into chats or social.

From The Library, Share offers Shelf tags (PDF) (one tag per tasting in view, up to 40) and Share as dram pack, which packs the tastings in view (up to 50) into a single link. Opening someone's pack adds those drams to your Library as new entries; it never overwrites what you already have. They arrive marked Elsewhere, so they never count toward Cellar Value or Open Bottles. Blind flights, The Snug, and curricula have their own share buttons.

The Snug

The Snug, named for the small back room of an old pub, is 3DC's social corner: no account, no server.

• Your Card: your palate fingerprint (average axes, grade spread, what you gravitate to, and a cool-season/warm-season split once there's enough data). It carries your consistency score once it reaches 90. Share your card offers two ways: Send as a link, which works from anywhere (send it by text, email or chat; your friend taps it and the app asks before adding your card), and Share card picture, an image with a QR for scanning across a table.
• Your Palates: friends' cards you've imported, ranked as taste twins by how closely they track yours; tap one to compare. A friend's consistency score is self-reported.
• Scan a friend's card, or paste the link they sent you, to import it and compare palates side by side. Tap a friend to open the comparison; with more than ten friends a Find a friend search box appears above the list. Pasting helps when a chat app opens the link in its own browser instead of the app: copy the link, then use Paste a friend's link in The Snug (on iPhone, Got a link instead? Paste).
• Remove a friend's card: on iPhone, press and hold the row and choose Remove palate, or open it and use Remove <name> in the comparison sheet. On Android, tap the trash icon on the row, or use Remove <name> in the sheet. You're asked to confirm.

Cards go straight from one phone to another, by QR or by a link sent through any messenger: there's no directory and no cloud. A link carries the card after its #, which never reaches any 3DC server. A card summarizes your ratings and flavor leanings, and your display name if you set one; it never contains your notes.

When a friend sends a newer card, it replaces their old one. If a card arrives from a new phone under a name you already have, the app asks Replace, Keep both or Cancel: Replace swaps the old card for the new one, Keep both stores the new card beside it (two friends can share a name), and Cancel changes nothing. Cards with the same name show the date each was added. Scanning your own card just says “That's your own palate card.”

Palate Curricula

Curricula are guided tasting journeys. Each step names a style to hunt, never a brand, and ticks itself off when you log a new tasting that matches it (a tasting you logged before the step doesn't count).

The screen opens with a short How it works and a Start here card that suggests a next step (based on your palate once you have one, when its label changes to Recommended for your palate). Each journey is folded to its title and progress; tap it to open its steps. A journey opens already unfolded only while it's in progress; a graduated one starts folded.

• Built in: The Peat Ladder, A Sherry Education, and Rye vs. the World, five steps each.
• A step: tap it to read the brief, see what to hunt in plain language, see the tasting that completed it, and write a private reflection.
• Make your own (at the bottom): Create a curriculum to name it and add ordered steps (title, brief, and the styles to hunt). It lists under My curricula, ticks off like the built-ins, and you can edit or delete it from inside the open journey.
• Share / Scan: Share sits inside an open journey; Scan a friend's code (at the bottom) adds theirs. Friends' curricula sit under Community and are read-only.
• Graduate: finish every step and you get a Graduated marker and a shareable completion card.

Deleting a curriculum keeps your tastings and reflections.

Backup & export

Your notebook lives on your phone, so keeping a copy is up to you, and easy:

• Export backup (JSON): a full backup file (3dc-backup.json) you can store anywhere.
• Export CSV (spreadsheet): a spreadsheet-friendly 3dc-tastings.csv. It can't be imported back; use the JSON backup to restore.
• Import backup: restore from a 3dc-backup.json. Tastings in the backup replace the same tastings here, including any edits you made since, and tastings you deleted since come back. Tastings that aren't here yet are added, and nothing is deleted. You're asked to confirm first. A file over 25 MB, or one from a newer version of 3DC, is refused with a message.
• Auto-backup (Settings → Auto-backup): pick a folder once (on iPhone, a folder in iCloud Drive or anywhere in Files; on Android, a folder in Google Drive or on your phone) and the app writes the latest backup there every time you leave it. There's also a Back up now button, plus Change folder… and Turn off auto-backup.

What a backup includes

Tastings, blind flights and group sessions, bottle details (opened, finished, notes), drill results, curriculum progress, curricula you wrote or imported, your step reflections, and your palate card's identity (so friends' apps still recognize your card on a new phone).

Moving to a new phone

Because your data is on-device, moving phones is a restore, not a login:

1. On the old phone, make the backup current. With Auto-backup on, tap Back up now; otherwise Settings → Export backup (JSON) and save 3dc-backup.json where you can reach it from the new phone.
2. Install 3DC Tasting Notes on the new phone.
3. Restore. Either Settings → Auto-backup → Choose backup folder, pick the same folder, and accept the restore offer; or Settings → Import backup and choose the file. The offer appears only if the new phone has no tastings, so on the intro choose Get Started, not Try with sample tastings. If no offer appears, use Settings → Import backup and pick 3dc-backup.json (or a 3dc-backup.kept-… or 3dc-backup.prev.json file) from the same folder. Check the tasting count in Settings matches.
4. Set up what a backup doesn't carry: theme, display name, App Lock, Home order, and the backup folder. Bring back friends' palate cards: scan their QR again, or open or paste the link they sent.

• On iPhone, if you set up the new phone by restoring your old iPhone's iCloud or computer backup, iOS normally brings the app's data across, photos included.
• On Android, the system's phone-to-phone copy doesn't carry this app's data (it opts out of Android backup on purpose), so use the backup file.
• Moving between iPhone and Android works the same way. The backup format is identical on both platforms.

Privacy & app lock

• Your notebook lives on your phone. No account, no sign-up, no analytics, no ads. The app collects nothing and there's no server for anyone to see.
• Label reading is on-device. Dictation uses your phone's speech service, which can process audio on a server when the phone can't do it on the device (see Dictating notes). The app doesn't keep or send the audio; only the text goes into your note.
• Android permissions: the app never asks you to grant one, and it declares no internet access (only permissions Android grants by itself at install, for the fingerprint lock and for checking network status). The camera, photo picker, and speech are handled by system apps, and barcode scanning uses Google's code scanner in Google Play services. On iPhone, the camera, microphone, speech recognition, and Face ID (for App Lock) are asked for only when you use them.
• App lock (Settings → Privacy: Require Face ID, Require Touch ID or Require Passcode on iPhone, Require unlock on Android): optionally require Face ID / Touch ID / fingerprint or your device PIN to open the app. It's off by default and only available once your device has a screen lock set. Remove your device lock later and you're never shut out of your own data. On iPhone it locks as soon as the app goes to the background. On Android it locks again after you've been away for more than 60 seconds, and while App Lock is on the app also blocks screenshots and screen recording and hides its contents in recent apps.
• Settings → About links to the Privacy Policy and Support, and shows the app version.

For the full detail, see the Privacy Policy.

Themes & appearance

Make it yours in Settings:

• Appearance: System, Light, or Dark.
• Theme family: Modern, Nostalgic, Natural, Retro, Futuristic, or Hacker (a monospace terminal look). Family and brightness are chosen independently.
• Display name: appears on palate cards, dram packs and graduation cards you share; never on shelf tags.

The 3DC logo tints to your theme's accent, so the whole app takes on the look you pick.

Troubleshooting

Frequently asked questions