In North American distilling, craft is negotiated through shifting claims about scale, ownership, independence, labor, and tradition; the label does not by itself identify how a spirit was made.
Specific trade programs can define craft for their own certification purposes, and individual producers may use the term consistently.
Treat craft as a market and organizational classification whose current definition must be sourced, not as a technical whiskey style or automatic quality signal.
Created from the complete SRC-21 review; current association thresholds require refresh before publication. September 29 Offringa audit: Offringa's PDF 278–280 compares association criteria and sourcing/scale issues, supporting the bounded category distinction. Its pot-only definition, thresholds, state-law generalizations and policy forecasts are not accepted as current or universally accurate.
Atomic idea
In North American distilling, craft is negotiated through shifting claims about scale, ownership, independence, labor, and tradition; the label does not by itself identify how a spirit was made.
Reasoning
Treat craft as a market and organizational classification whose current definition must be sourced, not as a technical whiskey style or automatic quality signal.
Counterpoints
Specific trade programs can define craft for their own certification purposes, and individual producers may use the term consistently.
Provenance
The existing Literature Note for Whisky and Other Spirits provides the original evidence chain. Offringa adds a dated comparison of association criteria and the distinction between sourced whiskey and on-site distilling. These are not automatic quality rankings.
Offringa — September 29 full-copy comparison
Offringa's PDF 278–280 compares association criteria and sourcing/scale issues, supporting the bounded category distinction. Its pot-only definition, thresholds, state-law generalizations and policy forecasts are not accepted as current or universally accurate.
Literature review. The existing atomic idea and maturity are retained; this source is a qualified secondary contribution.