THE GREAT WHISKEY MAKER
The Story of Uncle Nearest + Jack Daniel
If you’re a whiskey drinker, chances are you got started with Jack Daniel’s. It’s easily the most recognizable brand on the second-from-the-bottom shelf at your local bar or the bourbon section at the liquor store. Of course, Jack Daniel’s technically isn’t bourbon—it’s “Tennessee whiskey,” and for nearly 150 years, it’s enjoyed an almost exclusive claim to that spirit category. In recent years, however, a new contender has entered the fray—a Tennessee whiskey that pays tribute to the emancipated slave who taught Jack Daniel how to distill.
Born circa 1820, Nathan Green was a slave until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. Known to friends as Uncle Nearest, Green had met Jack Daniel when the whiskey maker was a young boy, and when Daniel finally opened his distillery in 1865, he brought Green’s sons on board and hired Green himself as master distiller. To this day, the recipe that we all know and love as Jack Daniel’s is Green’s design.
Uncle Nearest, Inc. was founded in 2017 and aims to capture the spirit (no pun intended) of the whiskey once brewed by Green. The company’s CEO and founder, Fawn Weaver, is the first woman of color to helm a liquor brand, and at a time when consumers are making an effort to buy more from Black businesses, Uncle Nearest is a great place to start.
Their Tennessee whiskey is available in two varieties: 1884 small batch whiskey at 93 proof and 1856 premium aged whiskey at the bourbon snob-approved 100 proof. So how do these not-quite-bourbons taste? Surprisingly, very little like Jack Daniel’s. Absent is the signature charcoal note that gives Jack its bite and allows it to blend perfectly with Coca-Cola. A closer comparison would be George Dickel, another Tennessee whiskey that’s best enjoyed straight or on the rocks.
Of course, George Dickel is owned by Diageo, a multinational corporation that’s essentially the Anheuser-Busch of liquor. Buying a bottle of Uncle Nearest ensures your money’s going toward an independent, Black-owned business rather than the second-largest distiller in the world.
If you’re looking for a solid whiskey to sip while you grill this Fourth of July, you could do a lot worse than Uncle Nearest. And if you’re a longtime fan of Jack Daniel’s, it might be worth trying the whiskey that honors his teacher, friend and master distiller. After all, if it wasn’t for Nathan Green, America’s most ubiquitous whiskey might be something like Jim Beam.
