Today I’m excited to announce that the brand new Distiller app is finally here. The app has been re-designed and re-built from top to bottom, and we’re very proud of the final result. Head to the App Store or Google Play Store now to get it.
The story behind the change
Back in the beginning of 2020, Microsoft announced that it was deprecating the framework that we had built the Distiller app on. By November 2021, it was no longer going to be supported. We were faced with the reality that we were going to have to re-write the app from the ground up on a new framework. So, we got to work.
We began surveying users, looking at our metrics, doing deep dives on the most used features (as well as the least used features), and talking to people about how and why they used Distiller. We wanted to make sure that since we were going to have to re-build Distiller, we were doing it with all of that information in mind.
Over the course of the past two years, our small and amazing team has been hard at work designing and building out the new app to be the ultimate spirits companion. Whether you’re searching for spirits while you’re at the store, doing research on bottles at home, leaving reviews of your latest drams or organizing your collection, the new Distiller app is the tool for the job.
Thank you to everyone who has written in with such kind words about the app, as well as folks who have offered suggestions about how we can improve it. As always we will continue to work on the app, releasing regular updates and new features, so it’s always getting better and better.
What’s new in this version
A lot has changed in this new version of the Distiller app. Instead of a feed of articles and reviews when you open the app, you’ll land on a Search page. You can search straight from the main bar, see your most recently viewed spirits, or tap right into specific spirit types. You can also now not only search by spirit names, but by styles, countries and, if you’re a Distiller Pro user, even flavors!
The spirit page
The spirit page has a new look too, most notably the new flavor profile. Now when you create your reviews, you’ll be able to add flavor tags. These tags will help create the flavor profiles you see on spirit pages. There are millions of unique spirit reviews in our system, so you know the flavor profiles are based on an incredible amount of data.
Why did we change the flavor profile?
When we launched Distiller, the only people creating spirit pages were the spirits experts on the Distiller Tasting Table. These are Distiller employees who receive samples of new releases and create the tasting notes and flavor profiles you were used to in the old app. Once we created the ability for users to create their own spirit pages in Distiller, the amount of bottles created by users like you quickly outnumbered the ones created by our tasting experts.
What that meant was over time, a smaller and smaller percentage of bottle pages had any sort of flavor data on them.
So we turned to the incredible Distiller community and its millions of spirits reviews to help us generate flavor profiles for the tens of thousands of spirit pages. Now, instead of a flavor profile created by a single spirits expert, you’re seeing one that is generated by pulling flavors from the millions of spirits reviews in Distiller. If you’d like to help contribute to the flavor profile of a spirit, add flavor tags to your reviews. These flavor profiles will change over time as more and more people add flavor tags to their reviews to influence the graphs.
Activity feed and Lists
We’ve also reimagined the activity feed to make it easier to read and interact with. You can now like reviews straight from your feed and easily discover new people to follow. Personal notifications have been moved to a notification center in your profile so your feed will only be focused on reviews.
Your lists also received an upgrade. You can now search within lists, and Distiller Pro members can add private notes and bottle quantities quickly and easily.
Barcode scanner and other Distiller Pro features
The barcode scanner is now front-and-center and easier to use than ever before. Distiller Pro members can use it ad-free to scan your bottles. Just hold your bottle’s barcode up to the scanner and get all of the information we have on that spirit.
In addition to all of the other improvements, we’ve also brought some new things to Distiller Pro. One of the most exciting new features is the ability to search and filter by flavors. Looking for a highly rated peaty Scotch whisky to add to your collection? Just search for “peaty” or set your filters to Single Malt, your country to Scotland and your flavor to “peaty”.
Pro members can also now not only export their lists, but also all of their reviews straight from their profiles.
As always, Distiller Pro members also get access to weekly Pro Perks giveaways.
The old app
Now that the new app is out worldwide, we’ll be sunsetting the old version of the app in the coming weeks. If you still have the old version of the app, before the end of the year it will be locked and you’ll be forced to update. The old version of the app will still show that joining Distiller Pro is $10, but the new price will show up at checkout.
We hope you all enjoy the new and improved Distiller app, our team has been working hard on it for such a long time. We couldn’t be more proud to share it with you all.
As always if you have questions, please reach out to us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you.
Cheers,
Mikael
Co-Founder & CEO at Distiller
