New book chronicles the formerly enslaved man crucial to creating Jack Daniel's

Jack Daniel’s is a famous whiskey brand, but Daniel didn’t create the method for distilling Tennessee whiskey. He learned it from a formerly enslaved man named Nearest Green. Fawn Weaver created Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey to honor and preserve Green’s legacy and it’s now the most successful Black-owned liquor empire. Geoff Bennett sat down with Weaver to discuss her book, “Love and Whiskey.”

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Geoff Bennett: Jack Daniel’s is a famous American whiskey brand recognized all over the world. But Jack Daniel didn’t create the particular method for distilling Tennessee whiskey. He learned it from a formerly enslaved man named Nearest Green, the first known African American master distiller.

Back in 2016, Fawn Weaver was traveling abroad with her husband when she read a New York Times article about Nearest Green. That article set Fawn on a mission to learn more about him. She would go on to create Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey to honor and preserve Green’s legacy.

Seven years after launching, Fawn Weaver now owns the most successful Black-owned liquor empire, worth more than $1 billion, led by an all-women executive team. Fawn Weaver shares Nearest Green’s story and her own journey in her new book, “Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest.”

I recently sat down with her.

Fawn Weaver, welcome to the “News Hour.”

Fawn Weaver, Author, “Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest”: Thank you for having me.

Geoff Bennett: The story of Nathan Nearest Green, Uncle Nearest to his family and friends, is one of the most remarkable and until recently little-known American stories.

How did you first encounter it and why did it resonate so deeply with you?

Fawn Weaver: It was on the cover of The New York Times international edition. You have this photo that is on the cover of Jack Daniel. I didn’t drink Jack Daniel, but I knew what he looked like. I think we all know what he looked like. And there was a Black man seated to his right.

And the headline was: “Jack Daniel’s embraces a hidden ingredient, help from a slave.” Well, I think every Black person in this country was fascinated by that because we have known that we have been at the beginning of so many brands, trademarks we couldn’t trademark, patents we couldn’t patent.

And I think we’re still, as a group of people, very curious about, well, what were the things that we were involved in the beginning, that we had at least some type of assist with? Or what did we invent and we didn’t know?

And so I think that that’s important that we’re just all learning that.

Geoff Bennett: And that picture, which is on the cover of the book, this Black man is not Uncle Nearest.

Fawn Weaver: No.

Geoff Bennett: It’s his son, George.

Fawn Weaver: Yes.

Geoff Bennett: But this picture became the basis of a false narrative.

Fawn Weaver: It did.

Geoff Bennett: And the false narrative was that Jack Daniel owned slaves…

Fawn Weaver: Yes.

Geoff Bennett: … that he stole the recipe from Uncle Nearest and claimed all the credit.

Fawn Weaver: Yes.

Geoff Bennett: And it became part of your mission, ultimately, in correcting that story.

Fawn Weaver: And cleaning that up.

The amount of time that I and my team spent literally calling newscasters and saying, hey, you got this story wrong. Can you take that down? We will give you the true story. And the reason I thought that was important is, is, you have this man, this white man, that by all accounts may have been our first ally.

And he was absolutely being torn apart in the press. And he was one of the people who actually stood up for us. And I said, no, no, no, no, we can’t allow this to happen, that finally we have a story that comes forward. And it’s a good American story, and both people involved, black and white, were incredible people. I can’t allow one of them to be torn down just because of his race.

Geoff Bennett: Because Uncle Nearest was actually a mentor to Jack Daniel.

Fawn Weaver: Absolutely, he was.

Geoff Bennett: There are so many inflection points in your story, Fawn. But the one that resonated with me, that struck me deeply was, you and your husband were living in Los Angeles at the time.

And you took this trip to Lynchburg, Tennessee. You planned to be there for four days to continue doing your research. But along the way, you find this farm, and you decide to buy it.

Fawn Weaver: Yes.

Geoff Bennett: And you move from L.A. to Lynchburg. But that is when all of the doors started opening.

Fawn Weaver: Absolutely.

And let me be clear, we didn’t find the farm. It was Jack Daniel’s — one of his descendants, his now eldest living descendant, who said to me: “You know, that farm that you read about in the book,” and she was referring to his biography, Jack Daniel’s legacy. Most of that takes place on this farm.

It’s where we now know the original Jack Daniel distillery was birthed. It is where — Jack Daniel distillery number seven. That’s where it was, and it’s where Jack grew up and all the rest of that stuff. And she said: “You realize it’s for sale?”

I mean, this is all happening in a matter of hours of us showing up in Lynchburg, Tennessee. And so that’s where it all began. And then, obviously, when we decided we were going to buy this 313-acre farm, and now we have this task of restoring the home where Jack grew up and restoring where the original stream area was that led into the distillery and all the rest of stuff, and excavating the grounds to find all the historical elements, and then putting it on the historical registry.

So, at that point, that four days turned into a lifetime.

Geoff Bennett: Well, fast-forward. With the support of Green’s descendants…

Fawn Weaver: Yes. Yes.

Geoff Bennett: … you launched this company. Less than 10 years after launching, it now has a billion-dollar valuation. It’s the bestselling Black-owned spirits brand in the world, led by an all-female executive team. Huge success.

But in the beginning, how did the parent company of Jack Daniel’s respond to this research that you were doing and this plan to launch a company around Uncle Nearest?

Fawn Weaver: In the beginning, it was very interesting with their company, in part because you had people who saw immediately, OK, we have a problem, which is everyone now thinks that our namesake was a slave owner, that he stole the recipe, hid the slave, and we can’t clean this up.

And so this woman has now done all of this research. She’s gathered thousands of documents from six different states, done over 100 interviews, and she can actually clean this up. So, on one side, you had probably half of the company that was like, listen, just let her do what she’s doing because it benefits us.

Then you had the other half of the company that could not get out of their way, because they couldn’t wrap their head around the fact that they were allowing a — what they considered a competitor to emerge, and that was tied so closely to their brand. And this went on for years.

Geoff Bennett: Wow.

I know you get asked all the time how you as a Black woman confront the challenges you face in the spirits industry dominated by white men. But I want to flip that question its head.

Fawn Weaver: Please do.

(Laughter)

Geoff Bennett: But how do you, being the exception, use that different perspective, the different entry point, the different point of view, the different approach to benefit your business?

Fawn Weaver: Yes. Yes.

So, I love that you switched it, because that would have just been my answer.

Geoff Bennett: OK.

Fawn Weaver: And the reason it would have been my answer is, is that I have been in this industry now for seven years. I have seen more white males fail than any other race or gender.

And so I looked at me coming in as a person of color, as a woman, as a Black woman, I looked at that as an advantage. It’s the same advantage, I believe, just being an American. When I walk into a room full of billionaires, just because it’s a room full of billionaires, it’s majority white male.

Well, who do you think they remember at the end of that time in that room? And so I have always seen being a Black woman in America as an advantage. I think it’s all a matter of mind-set. How do you look at it? How do you position it? When you walk into a room, are you uncomfortable to be in that room because no one looks like you?

For me, I have always looked at it and said, if I walk into a room and no one looks like me, then that means everybody’s looking at me.

(Laughter)

Fawn Weaver: So I have the greatest advantage in that room.

Geoff Bennett: That there is this ubiquitous American brand known all around the world, that there is this Black man, Nearest Green, at the very beginning of it…

Fawn Weaver: Yes. Yes.

Geoff Bennett: … and that you are the steward of his namesake, what does that feel like, Fawn?

Fawn Weaver: I don’t want to call it a wait or a burden, because it is such a blessing and it’s such an honor. But it comes with enormous responsibility.

I’m in the middle of my book tour. And every place that we have gone to, sold-out events and the lines are super long. And I can tell you, I can’t even count the number of people who come up to me with tears in their eyes because of what I represent to them.

If I could do this in the whiskey industry and the bourbon industry, where, before me, there was no one that wasn’t a white male, if I could do that in that industry, then they can do it in tech. They can do it in investment. They can do it in banking. They can now see themselves doing it.

That is a huge responsibility, because my success gives them belief and gives them hope that they can do it as well.

Geoff Bennett: Fawn Weaver, co-founder of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey and the author of “Love & Whiskey,” thanks so much for speaking with us. I appreciate it.

Fawn Weaver: Thank you for having me.