Last updated: August 27, 2026
Who we are
We are the Sycamore Whiskey Club, a 501(c)(7) social organization based in the Sycamore/DeKalb, Illinois area. This policy covers two things: our website at sycamorewhiskeyclub.org, and the Sycamore Whiskey Club mobile app.
They collect different information and are described separately below. If you have a question about either, or you want to know what we hold about you, email [email protected].
The Sycamore Whiskey Club mobile app
The club app is a private, members-only space. This section explains what it collects and what happens to it. It is separate from the website sections below.
Where your information lives. The club app’s database runs on hardware owned and operated by the club. Your posts, tasting notes and profile are not held by a commercial social network.
What we collect
- Your email address, so you can sign in — the app sends a six-digit code rather than a password — and so we can send you club email.
- Your name and home town, which other members see in the club directory. We ask for a town or city, never a street address.
- A profile photo and a short bio, if you choose to add them.
- What you post: posts, comments, tasting notes, ratings, the cheers you give, the bottles on your shelf, your event RSVPs, and any photos you upload.
- Where you say you had a pour, if you choose to add a place. You pick it from a list. The app never reads your device’s location, and pours at home are recorded against a single shared “Home bar” entry that holds no address.
- A notification token for your device, if you allow notifications, so we can send them.
- That you confirmed you are 21 or older, and the date you confirmed it. We do not ask for or store your date of birth, and we do not store your age.
- Reports you send to our moderators, and feedback you send to the club, so we can act on them and get back to you.
- Members you have blocked. We keep this so we can hide their posts and comments from you, and yours from them. Blocking is private — the member you block is not told, and no other member can see who you have blocked.
Photos. Photos are re-encoded on your device before they are uploaded. This removes the metadata a camera normally embeds — including any GPS location tag, the make and model of the camera, and the time the picture was taken. Only the image itself reaches us.
Who else sees it. Other approved club members see your name, photo, home town and what you post to the club. We do not sell your information, and we do not share it for advertising.
What club admins can see. The members who run the club can see the email address you sign in with, so they can tell who an account belongs to and get in touch with you — for example if a message we sent you never arrived, or if there is a question about your membership. Moderators and librarians cannot. Once an account is deleted its email address is gone entirely, and not even an admin can see what it was.
Services we rely on. Photos are stored and delivered by Cloudflare. Notifications are delivered through Expo and then Apple’s or Google’s notification services, which receive the notification and your device token. Email is sent through Resend, which receives your email address and the message. Everything else stays on the club’s own server.
How long we keep it. We keep your account information for as long as you are a member. Read notifications are deleted after 90 days. Reports made to our moderators are kept as part of the club’s moderation record. The club also keeps rotating backup copies of its database so it can recover from a failure; a backup made before you changed or removed something holds a copy of it until that backup ages out of the rotation.
Deleting your account. You can delete your account at any time from within the app, under You → Settings → Delete my account. Your sign-in and your profile — your name, photo, home town, bio, notifications, shelf, event RSVPs, settings, your block list and any feedback you sent us — are permanently deleted. Posts, comments, pours and catalog photos you contributed remain in the club app but are no longer attributed to you: your name is removed and they appear as “Former member”. We do this so that conversations other members took part in are not left full of holes, and so bottle ratings across the library don’t shift. If you want something specific taken down, ask a moderator — they can remove individual posts and comments at any time, including after your account is gone. Full details, including what to do if you cannot sign in, are on our Account & Data Deletion page.
Getting in touch. To ask what we hold about you, or to ask us to remove something, contact us at [email protected].
The club website
This section covers sycamorewhiskeyclub.org, where the club offers merchandise and event tickets. It is separate from the app section above.
When you place an order
To take an order we collect your name, your email address, your billing address and telephone number if you give one, and the details of what you ordered. We keep a record of your orders so we can answer questions about them and keep the club’s accounts.
We do not see or store your card details. Payments are handled by WooCommerce Payments and PayPal, depending on which you choose at checkout. Your card or account details go to that provider, not to the club’s website, and their own privacy policies apply to what they do with them.
If you create an account on the website
A website account stores the name and email address you signed up with, a scrambled version of your password that we cannot read, and the details you have saved for future orders. This is a separate account from the club app — signing in to one does not sign you in to the other.
You can ask us to delete your website account at any time by emailing [email protected]. We may need to keep a record of past orders for the club’s accounts even after the account itself is gone.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics to understand how the website is used — which pages people visit, and how they arrived. It sets cookies in your browser and sends information about your visit, including your IP address, to Google. We use it to make the site better, not to build a profile of you, and we do not use it for advertising.
If you would rather not be counted, Google publishes a browser add-on that turns it off across every site that uses it: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Most browsers also let you block or clear cookies in their settings.
The club app contains no analytics of any kind — no tracking, no crash reporting, no advertising software. This paragraph is about the website only.
Cookies
The website sets cookies so that it works: keeping the items in your basket, keeping you signed in if you have an account, and remembering choices such as the age confirmation. It also sets the Google Analytics cookies described above. We do not use advertising cookies and we do not sell what the site collects.
Embedded content from other websites
Pages on this site may include embedded content — a video or a map, for example. Embedded content from another website behaves exactly as though you had visited that website, so it may collect information about you, use cookies, and track what you do with it. We have no control over what those sites collect.
Who we share website information with
We share what is needed, with the people who need it, and no more:
- Our payment providers, WooCommerce Payments and PayPal, to take payment for an order.
- Google, through Google Analytics, as described above.
- Our web host, which stores the website and its database.
We do not sell your information, and we do not share it for advertising.
How long we keep website information
We keep order records for as long as the club needs them for its accounts. Website account details are kept until you ask us to delete the account. Google keeps analytics data according to its own retention settings.
The club also keeps rotating backup copies of its website and database so it can recover from a failure. A backup made before you changed or removed something holds a copy of it until that backup ages out of the rotation.
Your rights
You can ask us what information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email [email protected] and we will do our best to help. We may need to keep some records — order history for the club’s accounts, for example — and we will tell you if that applies.
Getting in touch
For anything in this policy, website or app, email [email protected].