Free tool · for whiskey, wine & spirits drinkers
Whiskey, Wine & Spirits Tasting Journal — Free Starter
The Tasting Journal Starter is a free one-tab tasting log template — a spreadsheet for Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice where every glass you drink is a row. A tasting note you can't find again never comes back to tell you anything; this one is built to be found. Score the nose, the palate, the finish and the balance out of ten, tag the flavor families you actually found, and the sheet combines the four into one score out of 100. Underneath the log, a small strip ranks the three flavor families you score highest — worked out from your own scores, not anyone else's, and it shows how many tastings each ranking rests on. Download it, log a few pours, and see which flavors you actually rate.
Take it with you — free, no signup
Direct download. No email, no account — just the files.
What it does
- One row per glass — date, bottle, producer, category, four scores out of ten, your flavor tags, a rebuy call, and notes.
- Dropdowns cover the category, the four scores and the rebuy call, so the data stays tidy enough to sort and filter.
- Combines your four scores into one out of 100 at a fixed 25 / 35 / 25 / 15 weighting — our split, not an industry standard — so a score you give today is comparable to one you give next year.
- Ranks your top three flavor families from the tags you typed, and shows how many tastings each ranking rests on — one or two is more coincidence than preference.
- Tag using the fourteen flavor-family names exactly as the included guide lists them; a tag that matches none of them is not counted in the ranking.
- Comes pre-loaded with ten fictional example tastings, so it opens on a worked example instead of an empty grid.
- Before you type: clear only the cream cells you type in — every column from Date through Notes except Score /100. Never clear whole rows: the Score /100 column and the hidden helper columns to the right of Notes do the arithmetic.
- Sixty rows, already formatted and formula-ready. The flavor-family ranking reads all sixty.
- A spreadsheet template that opens in Excel, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice — no macros, no signup, and nothing you type is sent to us.
Related reading
Own it, don't rent it
Want the full tasting journal to work out what you like?
This free starter is one tab, with three ranked flavor families. The full Whiskey, Wine & Spirits Tasting Journal does the rest of the arithmetic. Change the four score weights on its Setup tab, and every score in the file recalculates the moment you do. It works out what a pour of each bottle costs you, and ranks every bottle by score per unit of that cost. It derives the whole fourteen-family palate profile, broken out by category and by region. It scores a wishlist bottle against that palate as a Match %, before you spend. And it flags an open bottle against thresholds set for its own category, so a still wine is judged in days and a whisky in a year. Nine connected tabs, three PDF guides, and a one-click Google Sheets copy, in one owned workbook.
A one-time purchase you keep — the owned workbook between a blank spreadsheet and a rented tasting app.
A personal tasting journal, not advice about drinking, buying or investing. The example tastings and bottles are invented and illustrative, and are not affiliated with or endorsed by any distillery, winery or producer. Free to use; please don't resell or redistribute.