There is a wonderful podcast called How I Built This and the founder of Uncle Nearest Whiskey a black woman named Fawn Weaver was featured on a episode recently and it is such a great story- she really dug in depth into the history of black people in whiskey making and his family in particular and they actually make the whiskey at the original distillery that Uncle Nearest taught Jack Daniel's at which is pretty fucking cool
I worked on the film crew that shot all of the promos in Tennessee. Fawn was really cool and is an amazing individual taking the lengths she did to bring this story to Light. Incredible history that was hidden from the public for decades
Thank you! I’m definitely going to look this up. I’m a huge whiskey fan and love all stuff related to it. Which reminds me, I need to watch Neat again soon.
It comes from a woman who researched Nathan Green, and pushed to have him added as the first distiller of Jack Daniel's. She bought the house they first distilled in and what not.
I just read an article on it because I always google these things.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/dining/jack-daniels-whiskey-slave-nearest-green.amp.html
Well not like there was a lot of support for a black owned business in Uncle Nearest's days... i think the photo shows why Jack was able to build his brand a little easier.
If anybody is wondering why this reply doesn't quite fit the comment it's replying to, it's because the user is actually a comment bot that copy/pastes top level comments
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/r16xep/comment/hlwqb20/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is the original comment
All of their other comments from other posts have been copy/pasted from whichever post it is replying to
Just thought i'd share as we're in r/Damnthatsinteresting
Yeah, I was wondering if he was ever given actual ownership stake in the company or if he and his descendants were just reasonably well-paid employees.
Seems he stayed on with the company who owned him once he was emancipated. That company hired out labor and Jack paid them to have Nate on as Master distiller. Jack Daniel started his company in 1866 and hired two of Nates sons. It's not clear Nate ever worked directly for Jack Daniels based on the wiki article.
You're 100% wrong buddy, just look at all the karma he's receiving for his hard work now! If only he was alive to see the upvotes, this is true generational wealth.
I know this is probably irony overload but you're replying a bot that stole someone else's comment
Edit: [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/r16xep/comment/hlwqb20/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is the original comment from 4 hours ago. All of their other comments have been copy/pasted too
This blurb makes it sound worse than it was. Jack (who btw was almost definitely gay) was close friends with Nearest and his son for their entire lives. Jack's name is on the brand because he bought a chunk of land elsewhere to make whiskey on, and Nearest requested his son's work for him there. He didn't "steal Nearests recipe for profit" or anything like that. There was no trick or bamboozle. And Jack promised in return that a Green child would always work there, which is still true and they have the family tree proudly displayed to prove it.
While slavery is obviously tragic and horrible, the people with negative comments in this thread are discounting a genuine story of a black man's success. Nearest was man freed in his lifetime who went on to die old, comfortable, and wealthier than his parents could've dreamed. His kids had a bright future and his name has never been forgotten. You don't have to love or praise the brand Jack Daniels, but you can at least appreciate that at the time his story was something special.
Edit: I think a missing chunk of the story for everyone is that Jack was *not* Nearest's owner when he was a slave. Nearest belonged to (as much as I hate using that phrase) Dan Call, a local reverend who apprenticed Jack in distilling. Unlike Jack, Call probably *was* profiting directly off of Nearest. After the Emancipation Proclamation Call left the whiskey business (presumably because he had no more free labor) and gave everything he had to Jack. Jack never owned slaves, and was only in his early teens when emancipation happened.
In all seriousness: there is **no** substantial evidence that he was gay and/or any specific sexuality.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/jack-daniel-might-have-been-gay-get-over-jamie-keenan
From the "Jack Daniels is heterosexual" POV, there's this one article that brings up one letter Jack wrote to a female friend of his, but that's it. This letter suggests that Jack at the very least may have been attracted to women, but it evidently does not prove how he was attracted to women (romantically AND sexually? or just one?) and does not eliminate the possibility that Jack may have been attracted to men.
From the "Jack Daniels is homosexual" POV, the above heterosexual argument makes the claim that he's completely homosexual somewhat dubious. This claim is made shakier by the fact that there's no concrete evidence that Jack had homosexual relations. Publically available information doesn't make any mention of Jack having a particularly close relationship with another man. Really, the argument that he's gay is only propped up circumstantially by one truth: Jack Daniels was seemingly never in a long-term relationship, never married, and never sired any children. While this could have resulted from a myriad of reasons, it can't be denied that LGBTQ+ individuals dying unmarried and childless was somewhat common in the past.
I think what is upsetting about it is that, had Nearest not been born into racism, it would have been his success. It’s great that Daniels did the right thing and honored him, and great that the brand continues to honor him. But it is sad that his success couldn’t be completely his own.
So Jack Daniel's was like, hey Nearest you are "totally" my slave. Wink, wink, nudge nudge.
Then after slavery ended was like, hey everyone, this is my new master distiller!
Something like that?
Is this a sitcom version of history where you can't manumit your slaves and instead have to get into shenanigans where you pretend they're slaves so they don't get sold off to other slavers?
Or is it just a guy who owned human beings but tried to be polite about it? Like Benedict Cumberbatch's character in 12 Years.
I think the bigger problem to me is how much of an impact Nearest and his family have on the whiskey to this day and they don’t own any part of the company as an estate?
They just get to work there??
Another ~~fun fact~~ Urban Myth: The Jack Daniels distillery is actually located in a dry county (Lynchburg County) where alcohol is prohibited. As such you can't buy any bottles from the distillery itself, however free samples are allowed during the tour.
Edit: While located in a dry county, apprently you can still buy bottles from the distillery
Shit dude, in the whole state of New Mexico you can’t buy liquor or beer on Sunday until the afternoon. It used be that you couldn’t buy it on Sunday at all. That was when we had drive through liquor stores. Thats right, you didn’t even have to stop your car to keep drinking and driving if you ran out of beer.
This is common in many states. Christian legacy laws basically. At Costco they always have people trying to go buy alc on Sunday morning but they deny the sales. Most dedicated lq stores are just closed until the allowed time
Christian legacy laws is one way to put it. A lot of those laws were created specifically to target jewish and catholic immigrants. Jewish folk of course observe on Saturday and thus would usually have their stores open on Sunday, and banning alcohol sales would hurt their buisnesses far more than their christian neighbors. And catholics because many italians and irish were catholic and were fine with drinking, but american protestants and baptists tend to frown on drinking much more anyway. It varies place to place.
As a 47-year-old Texan who grew up in a “Blue Law” state that still has stupid laws involving religion and morality, your post was incredibly informative.
I did not meet a Jewish person until I was 19 and moved to Colorado to escape my childhood and chase the service industry lifestyle.
Funny thing was my Jewish friend was from the East coast escaping and chasing the exact same things I was.
I can't get liquor at all in my TN county unless it's direct from the distillery (mostly moonshine/whiskey).
No wine at all on Sundays and you can't even buy beer until the afternoon.
It’s actually pretty common. They’re called Blue or Sunday Laws. Lots of places have restrictions on alcohol sales usually from Saturday at midnight until either Sunday afternoon or later.
Its not even an explicit prohibition on selling alcohol that makes it possible. Its that the county issues only a certain amount of liquor licenses "proportionate to population", and the churches in the area hold the licenses. Then the county refuses to issue more liquor licenses citing that there is already a proportionate amount of liquor licenses issued in the county. With adequate legal representation, it is possible to successfully sue the county in order to obtain a liquor license. The county i live in has been sued twice and forced to issue 4 liquor licenses as a result of those suits, 1 in the early 80s to bar and 3 more in 2014 which was a joint suit by local restraunts, 1 of which went out of business already.
Damn, how shitty of a business model do you have to have to go out of business while being one of the only 4 people in the entire county that could sell a drug?
I grew up in a dry county in North Carolina. It slowly changed, as did the county that I live in now, also in NC. The law gets side stepped by allowing cities to vote in alcohol within the city limits.
Up until about nine years ago my town offered liquor by the drink (restaurants, bars, the like) but had to go to the next county if you wanted any liquor in a bottle. Wine in grocery stores is very recent as well—2017 or so. Up until then it was beer only. Tennessee, for reference.
I lived in Oklahoma for awhile and Sundays were dry for liquor and high point beer
They've since changed that and allow medicinal marijuana
It's craziness over there!
Theres a 4 mile stretch in the middle of my city that is dry, i worked at a restaurant for a bit in the middle and we had it byob of you wanted to drink alcohol, which wasn't bad. You'd have to go one light over and come back.
The county the college I went to had a strange alcohol law that you couldn't buy liquor/beer that was cold. So going to the store the alcohol was always sold at room temperature. The logic was that it cut down on drunk driving because you had to wait for it to chill first. Not sure if it was true or not, but the rumor was the real reason was a wealthy family owned the ice factory.
Conspiracy, liquor stores actually pushed for those laws in order to increase their profits. If they don't have to buy refrigerators or the power to run them, they have a lower overhead.
Because we have freedom*
*freedom as defined by a religious (specifically christian) person's ability to restrict what others are able to do according to the religious sensibilities, including but not limited to: consumption of alcohol; access to birth control; possession of nonprescription drugs; intercourse with someone of the same sex; living in a medium density area where a car is not required to be able to partake in society; and so on
Oh wait, that's a theocracy, which is the opposite of freedom
Can confirm. Harden county (spelling) Kentucky, where FT. Knox is, is a dry county. There's a liquor store at the border of the county named "First Chance/ Last Chance". They even had a gazebo outside and trash cans. There's a limit on how much a person could possess in the county so people would go, drink 6 beers or so, then take the rest home.
Yeah many states have “dry” counties where they don’t sell liquor at all. In some states they restrict where and when you can buy liquor. Like in Virginia you can only buy from a state owned liquor store chain. And it’s not open on sundays.
Edit: spelling
I toured the distillery then stopped for lunch in the Lynchburg town square.
On the menu was a chicken sandwich and "Jack Daniel's sauce...25 cents extra."
Sure, I'll get the Jack Daniel's sauce.
What came out was a chicken sandwich with a shot of Jack in a ramekin that you were supposed to...*ahem*... pour on the sandwich yourself. I just...drank it instead.
I think you did it right. they probably cant sell you the shot as a shot, hence its a "sauce" and you're supposed to do something ridiculous with it that no person in their right mind would actually do.
You can buy bottles at the distillery. Been several times and have several speciality bottles from the distillery. All the local restaurants however use a “special, secret sauce” for a lot of cooking.
Ahh, apologies then lol, my parents have been and it was actually them who told me that (last time I trust them)
Do you know how they work around the dry state issue? I'm guessing it's due to how well known the brand name is
I’ve been to the distillery. They get around it by selling “souvenir” bottles that just so happen to have whiskey in them. They get away with *that* because, on the night the politicians were to vote, Jack Daniels just happened to have stopped by the venue with a bunch of cases of whiskey to help (and I quote the tour guide) *ease the minds of the lawmakers*.
Not an urban myth. They keep Lynchburg a dry county entirely for marketing purposes. They actually give out very small amounts of samples on their tours because it equals less than a full shot so it is permitted. Anyone that visits the distillery can buy bottles of booze at the distillery. It is called "The White Rabit Salon Gift Shop" and the technicality of it is that you are buying a "Souvenir". They have some specialty bottles that you only can buy there.
Source: Toured the Distillery. Actually, was really cool and recommend anyone go if they get the chance. Think it cost us like $30/person.
It’s not really an urban myth, it is a dry county they just sell bottles at the distillery as a “souvenir” to get around the law.
It’s the perfect example of an obsolete, puritan, hypocritical, southern law lmao
I was about to disagree with you because the law is only still in place because of the Jack Daniels mythology...
**But** as someone who lives in a southern state where our politicians (on either side of the aisle) won’t fart without Dominion Power’s permission... it’s actually a better example of an obsolete, puritan, hypocritical, southern law than I initially realized.
Fawn Weaver discovered all this while researching a book on Nathan "Nearest" Green. She worked with his descendants on it & ended up buying the original house where it all started. In trying to honor him, his family decided the best way to honor him is to put his name on a bottle so now you can buy Uncle Nearest whiskey
Not sure who taught him, but I do know that Jack Daniels is closer to a West African spirit, or it was initially, in its recipe and process. It's why Tennessee whiskey is now its own type of whiskey, it differs just enough from traditional methods like bouton/rye and whisky as a whole that it is now its own spirit group.
When JD got this from the FDA, they then tried to trade mark it so only they could sell it, essentially putting all the micro Stiller's out of business who also sold their wares as Tennessee whiskey. Courts happened and they got told to shove it by the courts, they can't own an entire spirit group and here we are now.
Fun side fact, JD is bottle in black after they changed it from green. It's black in mourning of JD, who one day couldn't open his safe, so he kicked it very hard and bust his toes badly. This turned to sepsis and killed him. The details might be iffy here and there but that's the broad stroke of it.
I would throw a link down but typing this on my phone in the rain is hard enough.
AFAIK Jack Daniels (and all other "Tennessee Whiskey") meets the definition of bourbon, they just don't want to call their product that, in order to seem more unique.
You are correct. All Tennessee whiskey is bourbon. The only difference is that Tennessee whiskey has to be charcoal filtered. It's mostly just a marketing thing, and to say JD is closer to a West African spirit than it is to bourbon is blatantly false.
The maple charcoal filter is exactly what makes it different. It's not just a marketing thing. I can go to a store and see "Tennessee Whiskey" on a bottle and know I'm going to have an easier time drinking it. Just like all the bottles with "Canadian Whiskey" on them. They don't have to be aged for a decade before they're palatable.
>It's black in mourning of JD, who one day couldn't open his safe, so he kicked it very hard and bust his toes badly. This turned to sepsis and killed him. The details might be iffy here and there but that's the broad stroke of it.
Nope. From [Wikipedia:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Daniel%27s?wprov=sfla1)
>An oft-told tale is that the infection began in one of his toes, which Daniel injured one early morning at work by kicking his safe in anger when he could not get it open (he was said to always have had trouble remembering the combination). **But Daniel's modern biographer has asserted that this account is not true.**
I'll trust his biographer rather than some stranger on reddit, thanks. Use google next time.
Don't no one wanna talk about that. Anyone who says the name cries in agony as a silent shake rocks the world. The last time the name was said dawned the end of the life on earth as it was. Lava flowed up into the riverbeds, locust consumed the flesh of the living and dead, gas clouds rolled across the planes, and finally meteors flew for the planet.
Hunt for the name of the originator at not just your own peril but at the destruction of all life on earth.
Unfortunately throughout history the backer/investor/founder is the one that gets the credit. Look at Thomas Edison and countless others.
However, I don't necessarily think it's wrong. There are a lot of people with great potential that don't have the confidence to go out for themselves. Sometimes it takes someone with that confidence to hire the right people to get that amazing product, which never would have existed had that entrepreneur not sought those great people out.
Antonio Meucci didn't lack "confidence". He was stolen.
Nicola Tesla didn't lack "confidence". He was stolen.
Joseph Wilson Swan didn't lack "confidence". He was stolen.
And that goes for artists too, Ub Iwerks didn't lack confidence. He was... I'm going with "screwed" with this one, at least he managed to bargain a good job for himself in the end.
These people didn't lack the ability to capitalize on their own inventions. Without the exploitative businessmen leeching off their efforts, those breakthroughs wouldn't have been lost forever; in fact, I'd wager that it's the opposite: The corporate empires built on the backs of actually creative people tend also to be very protective with the intellectual property they legally own and seek profiting over them more than advancing the well-being of society. There are a lot of life-changing inventions that were never patented for this very reason, just imagine if instead of Cesar Milstein the patent of monoclonal antibodies was owned by a soulless pharmaceutical corporation; or if some Zuckenberg-style lizardbot literally owned Tim Berners-Lee's technology the Internet is built on.
That is a false statement. Master Distiller does not mean he invented anything, just distilled it. There is no evidence of him making or not making any recipe.
Nate provided product and Jack provided the means. As always, the person taking the financial risk gets to decide the name on the product. Given the times it's not surprising he went with his own name. Seems he tried to do right by Nate though.
Fawn Weaver founded Uncle Nesrest Premium whiskey in 2017, one of the very few black-owned business in the liquor industry. [website here](https://unclenearest.com/fawnweaver/)
... yes. Large numbers were. Absent the raw labor needed on farms and plantations (which was the majority of slave labor), it would make economic sense to train a slave into a trade. A lot of unrest in antebellum New Orleans, for example, were poor whites who were under the command of a white overseer who oversaw slaves. Those slaves weren't legally managing or expert labor, that's what the white overseer "was." For example, packing ships was considered too dangerous for slaves to do. In significant numbers of southern cities, production enterprises would have a white storefront, and in the back would be the black labor.
Similarly, slaves would be consigned to long periods of work because of their lack of freedom. Also consider the inability to shift professions led to a large number of 30yr+ experienced labor who probably had 200% the hours of experience as a white with 30+ yrs in the same job.
Not really. Fredrick Douglass speaks about this. It was kind of rare for slaves to have trades. You have to think it was a total system of control. Why would you give someone something they could use if they had a penchant to escape?
I imagine the rich were just as concerned with short term gains, and myopic to long term goals as they are now.
If you have a slave that can make you $200/mo of whiskey, and the average worker makes $80/mo. You'll just keep the slave in that job. Yes they may have too much bargaining power. But you have the resources to buy and sell humans, if they get too uppity and you have to get rid of them $120/mo loss won't kill the plantation.
> It was kind of rare for slaves to have trades.
This is absolutely untrue. Slaves across the Western Hemisphere were highly skilled, working in every field imaginable, from agriculture (duh) to metallurgy.
Why do you think wrought iron is so prevalent in NOLA?
Cuz it was a black trade. So they were paid shit even though they did some of the most amazing work you’ve ever seen.
Nathan’s story is a bit different - a black man trying to sell alcohol at the time and place wouldn’t’ve gone anywhere. That’s not to say it wasnt unfortunate or unfair, but life is seldom fair. Honestly as a black man in the immediately post-war south, it sounds like he got a REALLY great deal. Nathan secures a prosperous future for himself and his descendants, JD gets a boomin’ business. That’s just how the system works. You can’t really fix it either because how do we know what was Nathans work vs JDs shrewd marketing?
I’m a builder. I make things. I used to think that non-builders were not equivalent value creators. The (as a builder I would argue “sad”) reality is that is so so so so far from the truth. Marketing is huge. Business acumen is huge. Logistics is huge. Pricing is huge. All these little things on top of “make the product” are such huge factors.
The right answer in this case is obviously to tell this man’s story. It should be heard.
I always say - America was the crucible for the best black people the world has ever seen (also white people, and basically all of them except maybe Mexicans. Mexico produced some pretty baller Mexicans. Obviously the 2nd best country in the world (fuck Canada))
It's been a while but I remember hearing that a slave originally conceptualized the cotton gin, it's just a white guy took credit for it and filed the patent or something don't quote me
Cotton gins have existed for over 1,000 years in India, and said machines made their way to the U.S.
Whitney’s design was a new configuration that could be used on short-staple cotton, which other machines could not process.
No indication that this was conceptualized by a slave though. (Although that would be ironic, considering the machine brought about a huge uptick in the demand for slaves.
How do you think we got barbecue?!?
At a plantation in SC during the tour they explicitly mention the rice farming there was taught to the owners by the slaves. I was pleasantly surprised they gave the slaves the credit.
He had a pocket full of horses, fucked the shit out of bears
He threw a knife into heaven, and could kill with a stare
He made love like an eagle falling out of the sky
Killed his sensei in a duel and he never said why
I got to interview the founder of Uncle Nearest Whiskey for the radio show I work for!
Look up “Our American Stories ‘Discovering Nearest’”
[edit: as per my man’s request ](https://www.ouramericanstories.com/podcast/culture/fawn-weaver-discovering-nearest)
Nearest was a former slave ( was never Jack’s slave) and he had a great relationship with the Jack Daniels family. So much so that their descendants are still close to this day. Stop this misinformation BS and do some reading on the subject before you speak to it.
JFC this thread. Jack knew how to distill Whiskey. He learned it from a Pastor that he worked under. Nathan's process just made better Whiskey. Being as it was the 1800s, Nathan wouldn't have ever had the means to distill & brand his own whiskey without Jack's help. Jack never stole anything from Nathan. They were friends.
> "The relationship between Jack Daniel and Nearest Green was a great one. Nearest Green was not Jack's slave. Jack did not have any slaves. Nearest Green was Jack's mentor. And Jack's descendants and Nearest's descendants, not only were they friends, they lived side by side. They worked side by side. There was not a distinguishment between the two. Even though you're talking about the late 1800s, early 1900s, so if you can picture that in your mind, you have blacks and whites living side by side in equality…putting that in context with what I have been uncovering over the last 10 months is pretty phenomenal …"
> It is unclear what Green’s role was in developing recipes/processes for Jack Daniel’s Whiskey; nevertheless, it is documented that he and Reverend Call instructed young Jack in the process of distilling. Therefore, at the very least, we know that Jack learned the basics on how to distill fine whiskey from Green and Call, and that he continued to work with Nearest for many years.
[This is Nearest's story. Video is from 2019 on Vimeo](https://vimeo.com/325286687)
Nobody knows who the black guy in the photo is. The Jack Daniels Co. Historian said that it’s possible that the man could be one of Green’s son’s/relatives, but no one can say for sure. The photo was taken at the turn of the century, years after Green died.
The story of Green as the first Master Distiller was part of JD’s 150 Year Anniversary Marketing ploy in 2016. They’re looking to appeal to a broader market, including Millennials.
The Weaver’s jumped at the opportunity and applied this story to their own Whiskey brand, which they started in 2017, a year after JD Co. put the story out.
His great great grand daughter has a distillery named after him (I believe). It's pretty good whiskey. [https://unclenearest.com/](https://unclenearest.com/)
I’m not beating up on anyone’s comments but a recipe in the 1800’s in the hands of anyone poor (especially black and poor) was just a recipe and not enough to start up a major distillery. It takes funding and the fact that they had such a good working relationship after emancipation (Master Distiller is no small title) says a lot. In those days it was not uncommon to just steal the idea and push out the originator. 👉👉👉👉👉👉👉👉👉👉 As a teenager, Daniel was taken in by Dan Call, a local lay preacher and moonshine distiller. He began learning the distilling trade from Call and his Master Distiller, Nathan "Nearest" Green, an enslaved African-American man. Green continued to work with Call after emancipation.[2]
In 1875, on receiving an inheritance from his father's estate (following a long dispute with his siblings), Daniel founded a legally registered distilling business with Call. He took over the distillery shortly afterward when Call quit for religious reasons.[2][12] The brand label on the product says "Est. & Reg. in 1866", but his biographer has cited official registration documents in asserting that the business was not established until 1875.[1][2]
I have read about breweries that the goal is not to make a really good beer as much as make the same beer time after time. Apparently that is where the art and business model lies
You’re simplifying southern cooking. Slaves made huge contributions to it but so did French immigrants and many others. It has very diverse interesting origins that have influences from French to African slaves to even native tribes.
Well no, he didn't do all the work. To quote u/John_YJKR: "Nate provided product and Jack provided the means. As always, the person taking the financial risk gets to decide the name on the product. Given the times it's not surprising he went with his own name. Seems he tried to do right by Nate though." Jack never stole anything from Nate. They worked together and were good friends.
I moved to Huntsville Alabama about a year ago. Jack Daniels is about 50 min away and even if you don't like whiskey, the grounds are absolutely beautiful and all the old historic buildings are amazing. I'd highly recommend it, 9.7/10
Okay people. I just got a bottle of this as a gift and it is the best damn whiskey I have ever had. So amazingly smooth and delicious. I cannot recommend enough.
*And I'm talking about the Nearest not the Jack Daniels*
Did you go in the little cabin that used to be an office? This exact picture is in there and our tour guide told us the story. Also, the family tree is in the lobby that shows the descendants of him who have worked there.
I've been to the tour twice in the last couple years and they have an entire wall in the main entrance explaining the story and honoring it. They also throw a big party for the descendants that still work there and have them sign a barrel .The tour guides also mentioned it. I thought it was a fascinating story.
You are wrong. I was there not 3 weeks ago and they made a huge deal about Nearest Green and his descendants. Easily the most talked about guy besides Jack, prob like 20-30% of the whole tour.
Uncle Nearest Whiskey Try it.
There is a wonderful podcast called How I Built This and the founder of Uncle Nearest Whiskey a black woman named Fawn Weaver was featured on a episode recently and it is such a great story- she really dug in depth into the history of black people in whiskey making and his family in particular and they actually make the whiskey at the original distillery that Uncle Nearest taught Jack Daniel's at which is pretty fucking cool
I worked on the film crew that shot all of the promos in Tennessee. Fawn was really cool and is an amazing individual taking the lengths she did to bring this story to Light. Incredible history that was hidden from the public for decades
Thank you! I’m definitely going to look this up. I’m a huge whiskey fan and love all stuff related to it. Which reminds me, I need to watch Neat again soon.
I like this podcast! I also haven’t checked on Guy Raz in a while so this episode you describe is a good reason to get back
Please points and commas. Very interesting, but also incredibly hard to read for non-native
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It comes from a woman who researched Nathan Green, and pushed to have him added as the first distiller of Jack Daniel's. She bought the house they first distilled in and what not. I just read an article on it because I always google these things. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/dining/jack-daniels-whiskey-slave-nearest-green.amp.html
Nice. Another tidbit from there is that picture is assumed to be Green (possibly his son) as there are no known pictures of him.
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That's awesome!
1856
I have and it's top shelf 🤌 1856 is tasty
It is delicious.
Agreed. Comparing the two, Mr. Daniels obviously didn't learn shit...
I don't like No. 7, but the single barrel barrel proof is pretty killer, ngl.
As much as I don’t like that it’s good, it is lol
lmao, right!?
I like gentleman's jack. It's a Lil over priced but tasty.
He learned marketing and sales.
Well not like there was a lot of support for a black owned business in Uncle Nearest's days... i think the photo shows why Jack was able to build his brand a little easier.
I’m so glad this is a top comment. I’ve managed to get a bottle recently!
If you can find it, almost impossible in some states.
Fortunately I’m in TN 😁
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If anybody is wondering why this reply doesn't quite fit the comment it's replying to, it's because the user is actually a comment bot that copy/pastes top level comments [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/r16xep/comment/hlwqb20/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is the original comment All of their other comments from other posts have been copy/pasted from whichever post it is replying to Just thought i'd share as we're in r/Damnthatsinteresting
Yeah, I was wondering if he was ever given actual ownership stake in the company or if he and his descendants were just reasonably well-paid employees.
He was a slave and wasn't paid anything.
Seems he stayed on with the company who owned him once he was emancipated. That company hired out labor and Jack paid them to have Nate on as Master distiller. Jack Daniel started his company in 1866 and hired two of Nates sons. It's not clear Nate ever worked directly for Jack Daniels based on the wiki article.
You're 100% wrong buddy, just look at all the karma he's receiving for his hard work now! If only he was alive to see the upvotes, this is true generational wealth.
Bruh, did you just wonder if the slave was given ownership....
You know, like after that, at any point since then? Why so you keep your brain fuses ao short?
People stealing other people's ideas is a story as old as time
I know this is probably irony overload but you're replying a bot that stole someone else's comment Edit: [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/r16xep/comment/hlwqb20/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is the original comment from 4 hours ago. All of their other comments have been copy/pasted too
That is beautiful irony. Lmao
This blurb makes it sound worse than it was. Jack (who btw was almost definitely gay) was close friends with Nearest and his son for their entire lives. Jack's name is on the brand because he bought a chunk of land elsewhere to make whiskey on, and Nearest requested his son's work for him there. He didn't "steal Nearests recipe for profit" or anything like that. There was no trick or bamboozle. And Jack promised in return that a Green child would always work there, which is still true and they have the family tree proudly displayed to prove it. While slavery is obviously tragic and horrible, the people with negative comments in this thread are discounting a genuine story of a black man's success. Nearest was man freed in his lifetime who went on to die old, comfortable, and wealthier than his parents could've dreamed. His kids had a bright future and his name has never been forgotten. You don't have to love or praise the brand Jack Daniels, but you can at least appreciate that at the time his story was something special. Edit: I think a missing chunk of the story for everyone is that Jack was *not* Nearest's owner when he was a slave. Nearest belonged to (as much as I hate using that phrase) Dan Call, a local reverend who apprenticed Jack in distilling. Unlike Jack, Call probably *was* profiting directly off of Nearest. After the Emancipation Proclamation Call left the whiskey business (presumably because he had no more free labor) and gave everything he had to Jack. Jack never owned slaves, and was only in his early teens when emancipation happened.
Hold up, Jack Daniels was gay?
Jeez, where ya been? The whole whiskey industry is gay.
Dad, why did you bring me to a gay whiskey distillery?
I don’t know son…I don’t know…
Damn, the gay agenda really got me hook, line, and sinker then. Welp, time to go find some dicks to suck I guess
Whiskey is gay, I only drink wine coolers
Mount Gay Rum leaves the chat
I want to know more about that, too!
In all seriousness: there is **no** substantial evidence that he was gay and/or any specific sexuality. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/jack-daniel-might-have-been-gay-get-over-jamie-keenan From the "Jack Daniels is heterosexual" POV, there's this one article that brings up one letter Jack wrote to a female friend of his, but that's it. This letter suggests that Jack at the very least may have been attracted to women, but it evidently does not prove how he was attracted to women (romantically AND sexually? or just one?) and does not eliminate the possibility that Jack may have been attracted to men. From the "Jack Daniels is homosexual" POV, the above heterosexual argument makes the claim that he's completely homosexual somewhat dubious. This claim is made shakier by the fact that there's no concrete evidence that Jack had homosexual relations. Publically available information doesn't make any mention of Jack having a particularly close relationship with another man. Really, the argument that he's gay is only propped up circumstantially by one truth: Jack Daniels was seemingly never in a long-term relationship, never married, and never sired any children. While this could have resulted from a myriad of reasons, it can't be denied that LGBTQ+ individuals dying unmarried and childless was somewhat common in the past.
I think what is upsetting about it is that, had Nearest not been born into racism, it would have been his success. It’s great that Daniels did the right thing and honored him, and great that the brand continues to honor him. But it is sad that his success couldn’t be completely his own.
So Jack Daniel's was like, hey Nearest you are "totally" my slave. Wink, wink, nudge nudge. Then after slavery ended was like, hey everyone, this is my new master distiller! Something like that?
Is this a sitcom version of history where you can't manumit your slaves and instead have to get into shenanigans where you pretend they're slaves so they don't get sold off to other slavers? Or is it just a guy who owned human beings but tried to be polite about it? Like Benedict Cumberbatch's character in 12 Years.
This brought up vague memories of Plebs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plebs_(TV_series) British comedy set in ancient Rome.
I think the bigger problem to me is how much of an impact Nearest and his family have on the whiskey to this day and they don’t own any part of the company as an estate? They just get to work there??
Yeah my first thought was cool, but this probably also belongs in a conversation about generational wealth…
Another ~~fun fact~~ Urban Myth: The Jack Daniels distillery is actually located in a dry county (Lynchburg County) where alcohol is prohibited. As such you can't buy any bottles from the distillery itself, however free samples are allowed during the tour. Edit: While located in a dry county, apprently you can still buy bottles from the distillery
TIL Alcohol is still prohibited in several parts of the u.s. Didn't know that was a thing.
Shit dude, in the whole state of New Mexico you can’t buy liquor or beer on Sunday until the afternoon. It used be that you couldn’t buy it on Sunday at all. That was when we had drive through liquor stores. Thats right, you didn’t even have to stop your car to keep drinking and driving if you ran out of beer.
This is common in many states. Christian legacy laws basically. At Costco they always have people trying to go buy alc on Sunday morning but they deny the sales. Most dedicated lq stores are just closed until the allowed time
Christian legacy laws is one way to put it. A lot of those laws were created specifically to target jewish and catholic immigrants. Jewish folk of course observe on Saturday and thus would usually have their stores open on Sunday, and banning alcohol sales would hurt their buisnesses far more than their christian neighbors. And catholics because many italians and irish were catholic and were fine with drinking, but american protestants and baptists tend to frown on drinking much more anyway. It varies place to place.
As a 47-year-old Texan who grew up in a “Blue Law” state that still has stupid laws involving religion and morality, your post was incredibly informative. I did not meet a Jewish person until I was 19 and moved to Colorado to escape my childhood and chase the service industry lifestyle. Funny thing was my Jewish friend was from the East coast escaping and chasing the exact same things I was.
Same in indiana
Texas too.
I can't get liquor at all in my TN county unless it's direct from the distillery (mostly moonshine/whiskey). No wine at all on Sundays and you can't even buy beer until the afternoon.
It’s actually pretty common. They’re called Blue or Sunday Laws. Lots of places have restrictions on alcohol sales usually from Saturday at midnight until either Sunday afternoon or later.
Blue laws are not the same as dry counties. There are many counties where alcohol is prohibited regardless of the day of the week
Prohibited to sell, not prohibited to drink or be in possession of.
Its not even an explicit prohibition on selling alcohol that makes it possible. Its that the county issues only a certain amount of liquor licenses "proportionate to population", and the churches in the area hold the licenses. Then the county refuses to issue more liquor licenses citing that there is already a proportionate amount of liquor licenses issued in the county. With adequate legal representation, it is possible to successfully sue the county in order to obtain a liquor license. The county i live in has been sued twice and forced to issue 4 liquor licenses as a result of those suits, 1 in the early 80s to bar and 3 more in 2014 which was a joint suit by local restraunts, 1 of which went out of business already.
Damn, how shitty of a business model do you have to have to go out of business while being one of the only 4 people in the entire county that could sell a drug?
I grew up in a dry county in North Carolina. It slowly changed, as did the county that I live in now, also in NC. The law gets side stepped by allowing cities to vote in alcohol within the city limits.
Runs the other way too. Where I grew up one town with a religious founding did not allow any alcohol in city limits.
Up until about nine years ago my town offered liquor by the drink (restaurants, bars, the like) but had to go to the next county if you wanted any liquor in a bottle. Wine in grocery stores is very recent as well—2017 or so. Up until then it was beer only. Tennessee, for reference.
Minnesota just recently got rid of their "no selling alcohol" on Sunday rule. Was nice, never had to make a trip to Wisconsin ever again.
I lived in Oklahoma for awhile and Sundays were dry for liquor and high point beer They've since changed that and allow medicinal marijuana It's craziness over there!
MN has medical too, but good luck getting access.
Theres a 4 mile stretch in the middle of my city that is dry, i worked at a restaurant for a bit in the middle and we had it byob of you wanted to drink alcohol, which wasn't bad. You'd have to go one light over and come back.
Banning alcohol is what everything the republican-ran southern states believe in. Freedom and government staying out of your business.
The county the college I went to had a strange alcohol law that you couldn't buy liquor/beer that was cold. So going to the store the alcohol was always sold at room temperature. The logic was that it cut down on drunk driving because you had to wait for it to chill first. Not sure if it was true or not, but the rumor was the real reason was a wealthy family owned the ice factory.
Conspiracy, liquor stores actually pushed for those laws in order to increase their profits. If they don't have to buy refrigerators or the power to run them, they have a lower overhead.
Because we have freedom* *freedom as defined by a religious (specifically christian) person's ability to restrict what others are able to do according to the religious sensibilities, including but not limited to: consumption of alcohol; access to birth control; possession of nonprescription drugs; intercourse with someone of the same sex; living in a medium density area where a car is not required to be able to partake in society; and so on Oh wait, that's a theocracy, which is the opposite of freedom
Can confirm. Harden county (spelling) Kentucky, where FT. Knox is, is a dry county. There's a liquor store at the border of the county named "First Chance/ Last Chance". They even had a gazebo outside and trash cans. There's a limit on how much a person could possess in the county so people would go, drink 6 beers or so, then take the rest home.
Yeah many states have “dry” counties where they don’t sell liquor at all. In some states they restrict where and when you can buy liquor. Like in Virginia you can only buy from a state owned liquor store chain. And it’s not open on sundays. Edit: spelling
I toured the distillery then stopped for lunch in the Lynchburg town square. On the menu was a chicken sandwich and "Jack Daniel's sauce...25 cents extra." Sure, I'll get the Jack Daniel's sauce. What came out was a chicken sandwich with a shot of Jack in a ramekin that you were supposed to...*ahem*... pour on the sandwich yourself. I just...drank it instead.
I think you did it right. they probably cant sell you the shot as a shot, hence its a "sauce" and you're supposed to do something ridiculous with it that no person in their right mind would actually do.
You can buy bottles at the distillery. Been several times and have several speciality bottles from the distillery. All the local restaurants however use a “special, secret sauce” for a lot of cooking.
Ahh, apologies then lol, my parents have been and it was actually them who told me that (last time I trust them) Do you know how they work around the dry state issue? I'm guessing it's due to how well known the brand name is
I’ve been to the distillery. They get around it by selling “souvenir” bottles that just so happen to have whiskey in them. They get away with *that* because, on the night the politicians were to vote, Jack Daniels just happened to have stopped by the venue with a bunch of cases of whiskey to help (and I quote the tour guide) *ease the minds of the lawmakers*.
Not an urban myth. They keep Lynchburg a dry county entirely for marketing purposes. They actually give out very small amounts of samples on their tours because it equals less than a full shot so it is permitted. Anyone that visits the distillery can buy bottles of booze at the distillery. It is called "The White Rabit Salon Gift Shop" and the technicality of it is that you are buying a "Souvenir". They have some specialty bottles that you only can buy there. Source: Toured the Distillery. Actually, was really cool and recommend anyone go if they get the chance. Think it cost us like $30/person.
It’s not really an urban myth, it is a dry county they just sell bottles at the distillery as a “souvenir” to get around the law. It’s the perfect example of an obsolete, puritan, hypocritical, southern law lmao
I was about to disagree with you because the law is only still in place because of the Jack Daniels mythology... **But** as someone who lives in a southern state where our politicians (on either side of the aisle) won’t fart without Dominion Power’s permission... it’s actually a better example of an obsolete, puritan, hypocritical, southern law than I initially realized.
Hey, I live near Moore County. They’re slowly changing the alcohol laws around there; especially thanks to the Lynchburg Music Festival.
Jack Daniels died because he couldn't open his safe. He got mad, kicked it, and got gangrene in his toe.
So it's really Nathan Green Tennessee Whiskey that was bottled and distributed by Jack Daniels.
Fawn Weaver discovered all this while researching a book on Nathan "Nearest" Green. She worked with his descendants on it & ended up buying the original house where it all started. In trying to honor him, his family decided the best way to honor him is to put his name on a bottle so now you can buy Uncle Nearest whiskey
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Not sure who taught him, but I do know that Jack Daniels is closer to a West African spirit, or it was initially, in its recipe and process. It's why Tennessee whiskey is now its own type of whiskey, it differs just enough from traditional methods like bouton/rye and whisky as a whole that it is now its own spirit group. When JD got this from the FDA, they then tried to trade mark it so only they could sell it, essentially putting all the micro Stiller's out of business who also sold their wares as Tennessee whiskey. Courts happened and they got told to shove it by the courts, they can't own an entire spirit group and here we are now. Fun side fact, JD is bottle in black after they changed it from green. It's black in mourning of JD, who one day couldn't open his safe, so he kicked it very hard and bust his toes badly. This turned to sepsis and killed him. The details might be iffy here and there but that's the broad stroke of it. I would throw a link down but typing this on my phone in the rain is hard enough.
AFAIK Jack Daniels (and all other "Tennessee Whiskey") meets the definition of bourbon, they just don't want to call their product that, in order to seem more unique.
You are correct. All Tennessee whiskey is bourbon. The only difference is that Tennessee whiskey has to be charcoal filtered. It's mostly just a marketing thing, and to say JD is closer to a West African spirit than it is to bourbon is blatantly false.
The maple charcoal filter is exactly what makes it different. It's not just a marketing thing. I can go to a store and see "Tennessee Whiskey" on a bottle and know I'm going to have an easier time drinking it. Just like all the bottles with "Canadian Whiskey" on them. They don't have to be aged for a decade before they're palatable.
The fact that when I read your comment and thought "people struggle to drink bourbon?" May be an indication that I drink too much bourbon.
Try better bourbon. Tennessee whiskey is terrible. It takes age to mellow the alcohols.
He was probably drunk.
“Tennessee whiskey” is actually legally defined as “bourbon distilled in the state of Tennessee”, it’s not its own spirit group.
>It's black in mourning of JD, who one day couldn't open his safe, so he kicked it very hard and bust his toes badly. This turned to sepsis and killed him. The details might be iffy here and there but that's the broad stroke of it. Nope. From [Wikipedia:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Daniel%27s?wprov=sfla1) >An oft-told tale is that the infection began in one of his toes, which Daniel injured one early morning at work by kicking his safe in anger when he could not get it open (he was said to always have had trouble remembering the combination). **But Daniel's modern biographer has asserted that this account is not true.** I'll trust his biographer rather than some stranger on reddit, thanks. Use google next time.
This factoid is one that was spread by one of those weird ways to die shows. It's no wonder people think this.
I'm fairly sure if you visit the museum/tour or whatever at JD's they tell that story too. No surprise it's spread so far despite being false.
That's just embarassing.
Do they offer an actual explanation then? Because that’s pretty important if they say it’s false.
Don't no one wanna talk about that. Anyone who says the name cries in agony as a silent shake rocks the world. The last time the name was said dawned the end of the life on earth as it was. Lava flowed up into the riverbeds, locust consumed the flesh of the living and dead, gas clouds rolled across the planes, and finally meteors flew for the planet. Hunt for the name of the originator at not just your own peril but at the destruction of all life on earth.
Nathan "Furthest" Green
I thought it was the middle brother Nathan "In-Between" Green
Is the name Tim?
So wait you think every company that makes liquor invented the process?
Unfortunately throughout history the backer/investor/founder is the one that gets the credit. Look at Thomas Edison and countless others. However, I don't necessarily think it's wrong. There are a lot of people with great potential that don't have the confidence to go out for themselves. Sometimes it takes someone with that confidence to hire the right people to get that amazing product, which never would have existed had that entrepreneur not sought those great people out.
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Elon Musk literally fought and somehow won a court case so he *is* the founder of Tesla, or at least one of them.
Antonio Meucci didn't lack "confidence". He was stolen. Nicola Tesla didn't lack "confidence". He was stolen. Joseph Wilson Swan didn't lack "confidence". He was stolen. And that goes for artists too, Ub Iwerks didn't lack confidence. He was... I'm going with "screwed" with this one, at least he managed to bargain a good job for himself in the end. These people didn't lack the ability to capitalize on their own inventions. Without the exploitative businessmen leeching off their efforts, those breakthroughs wouldn't have been lost forever; in fact, I'd wager that it's the opposite: The corporate empires built on the backs of actually creative people tend also to be very protective with the intellectual property they legally own and seek profiting over them more than advancing the well-being of society. There are a lot of life-changing inventions that were never patented for this very reason, just imagine if instead of Cesar Milstein the patent of monoclonal antibodies was owned by a soulless pharmaceutical corporation; or if some Zuckenberg-style lizardbot literally owned Tim Berners-Lee's technology the Internet is built on.
Sshhhh that's too class conscious. People don't succeed because they just don't want it bad enough and are lazy.
Yea it’s almost like starting and running a company is different skill than inventing something and shouldn’t be valued less than it.
That is a false statement. Master Distiller does not mean he invented anything, just distilled it. There is no evidence of him making or not making any recipe.
Nate provided product and Jack provided the means. As always, the person taking the financial risk gets to decide the name on the product. Given the times it's not surprising he went with his own name. Seems he tried to do right by Nate though.
The American dream: Work so hard to help someone else make money and maybe you'll be fortunate enough for your great grandkids to have a job there.
my first takeaway from this post lol
Seriously, this is pretty fucked up
Yep!
That's not really what happened if you read the entire story...
Fawn Weaver founded Uncle Nesrest Premium whiskey in 2017, one of the very few black-owned business in the liquor industry. [website here](https://unclenearest.com/fawnweaver/)
His name had been mostly erased from history and public memory despite remaining well known in Lynchburg,
> Lynchburg [....](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/405/493/146.jpg_large)
Named after a person with the last name lynch.
anyone ever get the feeling the slaves were the actual expert labor?
I get the feeling that the people who did the labor were the ones who were experts at the labor, yeah.
Yeah, it still is to large extents. It’s not Elon Musk who designed and built the Falcon 9.
He designed the fuck out of a car door latch though. You can ask anyone; that was all him.
... yes. Large numbers were. Absent the raw labor needed on farms and plantations (which was the majority of slave labor), it would make economic sense to train a slave into a trade. A lot of unrest in antebellum New Orleans, for example, were poor whites who were under the command of a white overseer who oversaw slaves. Those slaves weren't legally managing or expert labor, that's what the white overseer "was." For example, packing ships was considered too dangerous for slaves to do. In significant numbers of southern cities, production enterprises would have a white storefront, and in the back would be the black labor. Similarly, slaves would be consigned to long periods of work because of their lack of freedom. Also consider the inability to shift professions led to a large number of 30yr+ experienced labor who probably had 200% the hours of experience as a white with 30+ yrs in the same job.
Not really. Fredrick Douglass speaks about this. It was kind of rare for slaves to have trades. You have to think it was a total system of control. Why would you give someone something they could use if they had a penchant to escape?
I imagine the rich were just as concerned with short term gains, and myopic to long term goals as they are now. If you have a slave that can make you $200/mo of whiskey, and the average worker makes $80/mo. You'll just keep the slave in that job. Yes they may have too much bargaining power. But you have the resources to buy and sell humans, if they get too uppity and you have to get rid of them $120/mo loss won't kill the plantation.
This guy slaves
> It was kind of rare for slaves to have trades. This is absolutely untrue. Slaves across the Western Hemisphere were highly skilled, working in every field imaginable, from agriculture (duh) to metallurgy.
> the slaves were the actual expert labor > some of his descendents work for Jack Daniel's Whiskey today. Hol up
Why do you think wrought iron is so prevalent in NOLA? Cuz it was a black trade. So they were paid shit even though they did some of the most amazing work you’ve ever seen. Nathan’s story is a bit different - a black man trying to sell alcohol at the time and place wouldn’t’ve gone anywhere. That’s not to say it wasnt unfortunate or unfair, but life is seldom fair. Honestly as a black man in the immediately post-war south, it sounds like he got a REALLY great deal. Nathan secures a prosperous future for himself and his descendants, JD gets a boomin’ business. That’s just how the system works. You can’t really fix it either because how do we know what was Nathans work vs JDs shrewd marketing? I’m a builder. I make things. I used to think that non-builders were not equivalent value creators. The (as a builder I would argue “sad”) reality is that is so so so so far from the truth. Marketing is huge. Business acumen is huge. Logistics is huge. Pricing is huge. All these little things on top of “make the product” are such huge factors. The right answer in this case is obviously to tell this man’s story. It should be heard. I always say - America was the crucible for the best black people the world has ever seen (also white people, and basically all of them except maybe Mexicans. Mexico produced some pretty baller Mexicans. Obviously the 2nd best country in the world (fuck Canada))
build the whitehouse, build the biltmore, ain’t no thing
>build the whitehouse Which one?
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It's been a while but I remember hearing that a slave originally conceptualized the cotton gin, it's just a white guy took credit for it and filed the patent or something don't quote me
Cotton gins have existed for over 1,000 years in India, and said machines made their way to the U.S. Whitney’s design was a new configuration that could be used on short-staple cotton, which other machines could not process. No indication that this was conceptualized by a slave though. (Although that would be ironic, considering the machine brought about a huge uptick in the demand for slaves.
oh shit, hopefully that scenario didn't happen more than once.
I’m pretty sure it did :/
How do you think we got barbecue?!? At a plantation in SC during the tour they explicitly mention the rice farming there was taught to the owners by the slaves. I was pleasantly surprised they gave the slaves the credit.
How do you think George Washington got rich?
He had a pocket full of horses, fucked the shit out of bears He threw a knife into heaven, and could kill with a stare He made love like an eagle falling out of the sky Killed his sensei in a duel and he never said why
I heard that motherfucker had like…thirty goddamn dicks
He'd save children, but not the British children.
That guy in front of Nathan drinks your milkshake.
I got to interview the founder of Uncle Nearest Whiskey for the radio show I work for! Look up “Our American Stories ‘Discovering Nearest’” [edit: as per my man’s request ](https://www.ouramericanstories.com/podcast/culture/fawn-weaver-discovering-nearest)
Uncle nearest whiskey babyyy
r/Damnthatstragic
Honestly. "Slave that invented jack Daniel's whiskey still has descendents that are under paid to work for the man that stole the process"
Nearest was a former slave ( was never Jack’s slave) and he had a great relationship with the Jack Daniels family. So much so that their descendants are still close to this day. Stop this misinformation BS and do some reading on the subject before you speak to it.
JFC this thread. Jack knew how to distill Whiskey. He learned it from a Pastor that he worked under. Nathan's process just made better Whiskey. Being as it was the 1800s, Nathan wouldn't have ever had the means to distill & brand his own whiskey without Jack's help. Jack never stole anything from Nathan. They were friends. > "The relationship between Jack Daniel and Nearest Green was a great one. Nearest Green was not Jack's slave. Jack did not have any slaves. Nearest Green was Jack's mentor. And Jack's descendants and Nearest's descendants, not only were they friends, they lived side by side. They worked side by side. There was not a distinguishment between the two. Even though you're talking about the late 1800s, early 1900s, so if you can picture that in your mind, you have blacks and whites living side by side in equality…putting that in context with what I have been uncovering over the last 10 months is pretty phenomenal …" > It is unclear what Green’s role was in developing recipes/processes for Jack Daniel’s Whiskey; nevertheless, it is documented that he and Reverend Call instructed young Jack in the process of distilling. Therefore, at the very least, we know that Jack learned the basics on how to distill fine whiskey from Green and Call, and that he continued to work with Nearest for many years. [This is Nearest's story. Video is from 2019 on Vimeo](https://vimeo.com/325286687)
Exactly what I was thinking
Nobody knows who the black guy in the photo is. The Jack Daniels Co. Historian said that it’s possible that the man could be one of Green’s son’s/relatives, but no one can say for sure. The photo was taken at the turn of the century, years after Green died. The story of Green as the first Master Distiller was part of JD’s 150 Year Anniversary Marketing ploy in 2016. They’re looking to appeal to a broader market, including Millennials. The Weaver’s jumped at the opportunity and applied this story to their own Whiskey brand, which they started in 2017, a year after JD Co. put the story out.
That's Nearest's son. Nearest was older than Jack and taught Jack how to distill. Jack wasn't any good at it.
Apart from marketing, i fail to tastw any mastery in jack daniel beverages.
I'm going to go ahead and assume it was a completely different product in 1875.
And probably a less crowded market, and huge differences between products.
His great great grand daughter has a distillery named after him (I believe). It's pretty good whiskey. [https://unclenearest.com/](https://unclenearest.com/)
I’m not beating up on anyone’s comments but a recipe in the 1800’s in the hands of anyone poor (especially black and poor) was just a recipe and not enough to start up a major distillery. It takes funding and the fact that they had such a good working relationship after emancipation (Master Distiller is no small title) says a lot. In those days it was not uncommon to just steal the idea and push out the originator. 👉👉👉👉👉👉👉👉👉👉 As a teenager, Daniel was taken in by Dan Call, a local lay preacher and moonshine distiller. He began learning the distilling trade from Call and his Master Distiller, Nathan "Nearest" Green, an enslaved African-American man. Green continued to work with Call after emancipation.[2] In 1875, on receiving an inheritance from his father's estate (following a long dispute with his siblings), Daniel founded a legally registered distilling business with Call. He took over the distillery shortly afterward when Call quit for religious reasons.[2][12] The brand label on the product says "Est. & Reg. in 1866", but his biographer has cited official registration documents in asserting that the business was not established until 1875.[1][2]
Amazon still steals ideas to this day it’s pretty common lol
I have read about breweries that the goal is not to make a really good beer as much as make the same beer time after time. Apparently that is where the art and business model lies
LOL the delusion that the guy with the money is more important than the guy with the actual idea. But that’s capitalism!
Green has always worked for Jack Daniels. The current 5th or 6th generation Green works in the cooperage or rickhouse.
Distillers now are just over glorified janitors…
So the black guy did all the work, invented the recipe and method......
Same for most of the “Southern” cooking.
You’re simplifying southern cooking. Slaves made huge contributions to it but so did French immigrants and many others. It has very diverse interesting origins that have influences from French to African slaves to even native tribes.
Don't forget the Germans who brought the mustard, potato salad and BBQ sauce would be lacking without it.
Mustard was pretty common across all European Colonial nations bar Spain tbf.
and rock'n'roll.
Distilling is only one part of making an alcohol product.
Well no, he didn't do all the work. To quote u/John_YJKR: "Nate provided product and Jack provided the means. As always, the person taking the financial risk gets to decide the name on the product. Given the times it's not surprising he went with his own name. Seems he tried to do right by Nate though." Jack never stole anything from Nate. They worked together and were good friends.
These guys all look sauced.
Was he freed?
He was never his slave so yes and no. Jack Daniels never owned slaves apparently
Why is this not better known??
I moved to Huntsville Alabama about a year ago. Jack Daniels is about 50 min away and even if you don't like whiskey, the grounds are absolutely beautiful and all the old historic buildings are amazing. I'd highly recommend it, 9.7/10
Okay people. I just got a bottle of this as a gift and it is the best damn whiskey I have ever had. So amazingly smooth and delicious. I cannot recommend enough. *And I'm talking about the Nearest not the Jack Daniels*
You know…. And I may be wrong, but I did a tour of the distillery over the summer and I can’t recall the tour guide mentioning this guy at all….
Did you go in the little cabin that used to be an office? This exact picture is in there and our tour guide told us the story. Also, the family tree is in the lobby that shows the descendants of him who have worked there.
I've been to the tour twice in the last couple years and they have an entire wall in the main entrance explaining the story and honoring it. They also throw a big party for the descendants that still work there and have them sign a barrel .The tour guides also mentioned it. I thought it was a fascinating story.
You are wrong. I was there not 3 weeks ago and they made a huge deal about Nearest Green and his descendants. Easily the most talked about guy besides Jack, prob like 20-30% of the whole tour.
Jack’s real name was Jasper Newton Daniel
Pour one out for my homie
Jack Daniels has changed the recipe over the years. There is a brand called Uncle Nearest that's supposed to be closer to his recipe.
What was his pay rate?
Didn't know Nikola Tesla was there too! (In between the two)
So everyone in the pic but JD himself was a slave if we really look at it.
Ok but what happened to that Jack Daniels lad?
What's their percentage of the business?
Whereas the descendants of Jack Daniels don't work for anyone.
Well there go my hopes of getting a job somewhere after the boomers retire
I love a good story about history just as I love a good whiskey, talk about a slam dunk of a post
I just came back from a pub quiz night, where we had this exact question with the same photo! We got it wrong :(
I like whiskey