FM 9-0 — Tater Identification and Field Classification
HEADQUARTERS, 101st BOURBONBORNE DIVISION · FIELD MANUAL 9-0 · FIRST EDITION
1. Purpose
This manual provides standardized identification criteria for tater activity in retail, online, and bottle-share environments. Early identification permits de-escalation, containment, and — in favorable conditions — rehabilitation.
2. Definition
For Division purposes, a tater is not a new drinker, an excited drinker, or a drinker with different taste than yours. Personnel using “tater” to gatekeep newcomers have inverted the entire doctrine and will be issued a mirror. A tater is a drinker whose relationship to whiskey has decoupled from the act of drinking it — for whom acquisition, scarcity, and display have replaced the beverage entirely.
3. Recognized Silhouettes
| Designation | Field Marks | Threat Level |
|---|---|---|
| The Velvet Bag Collector | Purchases determined primarily by packaging ceremony. Home contains more velvet than a Victorian funeral parlor. Believes the bag is load-bearing. | Low. Harmless to others; expensive to self. |
| The MSRP Denier | States “MSRP doesn't exist anymore” while standing in a store where it does. Pays $249.99 without visible distress. Patient zero of every price increase you've ever hated. | Elevated. |
| The Shelf Turtle | Conceals retail-priced bottles behind other inventory for later personal extraction. Identifiable by unnatural interest in the bottom shelf and a too-casual posture when other customers approach. | Moderate. Schedule of Offenses, Art. 12. |
| The Ambush Appraiser | Approaches open bottles at gatherings and announces their secondary value. Signature call: “you know what that's worth, right?” The bottle was worth an evening with friends. It is now worth an awkward silence. | Elevated. |
| The Investment Portfolio Guy | Refers to a closet of unopened allocated bourbon as “diversification.” Has spreadsheet. Has never had the whiskey. The spreadsheet does not have a column for that. | High. Refer to Strategic Amber Command for supervised opening therapy. |
| The Reformed Tater | Former exhibitor of any silhouette above, now pouring their once-bunkered bottles for newcomers with the zeal of the converted. Field marks: says “I used to be that guy” unprompted; gives away letters. | None. Welcome him. He was all of us. |
4. Rules of Engagement
4.1. Identification is for de-escalation, not sport. Public tater-spotting is itself a form of making whiskey your personality, and the Division regards it as friendly fire.
4.2. The approved counter-tater munition is a generous pour of something excellent and unallocated, deployed without commentary. Nothing dismantles scarcity worship faster than being handed something better than the trophy, from an open bottle, for free.
4.3. Rehabilitation rate is high. Every silhouette in Section 3 is a phase, not a species. The Division's own founding creed begins est culpa nostra for a reason.