Glossary

The words you’ll meet in Tierline, in plain English.

1. SuppliersProducers, brand owners and importers. They file labels with TTB.
2. WholesalersDistributors that carry brands in a state. Registrations often name them.
3. RetailersStores, bars and restaurants, which sell to you.

Each tier sells to the one below it.

The trade

Three-tier system: US alcohol is sold through three tiers: suppliers (producers, brand owners and importers) sell to wholesalers, and wholesalers sell to retailers (stores, bars and restaurants). A supplier generally can’t sell to a retailer except through a wholesaler. It’s where Tierline gets its name.
Distributor or wholesaler: The middle tier: the wholesaler that carries a brand in a state and sells it to retailers. Tierline uses the two words for the same thing, and shows each distributor as one company across its licences and states.
Supplier: A company that files labels with TTB: a producer, a brand owner or an importer. In Tierline a supplier is one TTB permit; a supplier group gathers a big company’s permits.
License and control states: In a license state, private wholesalers buy and sell. In a control state the state itself is the wholesaler of spirits, and sometimes the retailer, as in Iowa, Oregon or North Carolina. A control state publishes what it sells rather than who distributes it, so Tierline shows its list by supplier.
TTB: The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau: the federal agency that approves every alcohol label sold in the US.
Label approval: TTB’s approval of a label, its Certificate of Label Approval (COLA). A product needs one before it’s sold in the US, and an import before it clears customs, so new brands from every state, and from abroad, show up here first. TTB posts approvals a few days late, in batches.
Permit: The federal permit a producer, importer or wholesaler holds. Its number is on the labels it files, and in Tierline it identifies a supplier.
Registry: A public record of brands: a state’s list of the brands registered for sale there, or TTB’s public registry of label approvals. The states we read are on the coverage map.
Registration: A brand’s filing with a state so it may be sold there. In many states it names the distributor, sometimes by county or territory.
Names the distributor: The two kinds of state Tierline reads: one whose registrations say which distributor carries each brand, and one that only lists brands, a brand list.

On the screens

New to a state: A brand registered in a state for the first time, dated the day we first see it on that state’s list. The overview counts them; Brands new to your states lists them.
New brand: Among brands new to your states, one whose first TTB label is less than a year old. Among a day’s labels, a label that is its brand’s first on file.
New item: A label for a brand already on file with a product name it never filed before: a new expression, flavor, age or finish.
Label update: A new label for an item the brand filed before: a new size, vintage or packaging.
Expanding: Among brands new to your states, one already registered in 3 or more other states before it arrived in yours.
Interest score: Points that put the labels most worth a look first in a list. Spirits start higher, and new brands, first filings and the big supplier groups add points. How the score works, beside each list, shows every point. Worth a look is a score of 5 or more.
Supplier group: One of the big supplier companies, every permit whose holder’s names match it. On the overview it counts as one filer. The list of brands new to your states can leave their brands out, since they have sales teams of their own.
Carries: A wholesaler carries a brand in a state while one of its registrations of the brand is on the state’s newest full list.
Pickup: A wholesaler’s first registration of a brand in a state where another wholesaler had carried it for 30 days or more. It doesn’t show that the first one lost it. A brand four or more others already carry is left out.
Drop: A wholesaler stops carrying a brand: its registrations of it are gone from the state’s newest full list.
Move: A pickup and a drop of the same brand in the same state within 60 days: the brand went from one wholesaler to the other. It’s dated by the pickup.
Won and lost: On a distributor’s page: won is a pickup by it or a move to it; lost is a move away or a drop.

Your account

Team: Your company’s one account: its name, what it does, its states and categories, its trial or plan, and its seats. People join it by invitation.
Owner, admin and member: Everyone uses Tierline and has their own briefing and watchlist. The owner and admins can also invite people, change the company’s states and choose the plan.
Seat: A place for one person on your plan. Someone invited who hasn’t joined yet takes one too.
Free trial: 14 days from when your account is made, with no card, for up to 3 people.
Watchlist: The brands, suppliers and distributors you follow. See Watchlist.
Morning update: Tierline’s read of TTB and the states each morning, from 6:30 am Eastern. Your briefing waits for it.
Demo: The pictures in this guide come from Tierline’s demo, where every company, brand and person is invented.