Tea at Trianon: Nearest Green, Jack Daniel, and Whiskey

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, July 8, 2022

Nearest Green, Jack Daniel, and Whiskey

From Entrepreneur:

The stars began to align for Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey with the June 25, 2016 publication of a New York Times article by Clay Risen, who delves into the history of Jack Daniel's, one of the world's best-selling whiskeys, in honor of the distillery's 150th anniversary. Risen recounts a tale familiar to many whiskey aficionados: A young Daniel comes to work on preacher Dan Call's farm in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where the preacher, who also happens to be a grocer and distiller, teaches him the tricks of the whiskey trade.

But that's not the whole story — not even close. Today, the Brown-Forman Corporation, which has owned Jack Daniel Distillery since 1956, acknowledges that the preacher didn't teach Daniel how to distill at all. A formerly enslaved Black man by the name of Nathan "Nearest" Green, who also worked on Call's farm, did. In his 2016 piece, Risen writes that although "the story was never a secret," it "may never be definitively proved."
That wasn't good enough for Weaver, who, upon reading the article, was immediately fascinated by Green's story. "One because I'm African American," Weaver says, "and two because at the time, it was right before my 40th birthday, and up until that point, I'd never known of another ubiquitous brand that we all know and love that could pinpoint an African American was there at the beginning, although we know that for a lot of our brands, African Americans were there at the beginning."
Weaver set out to find the definitive proof of Green's involvement. "The only way that the story was actually going to hold up in the history books was if it was proven, not just speculated about," she says. "It couldn't just be oral history. So I took on the project, just looking at it as a book, as a movie, as something that's really interesting in terms of African American contributions and history and America.

"I happen to be one of those people that absolutely loves America and wants to see it its best self," Weaver continues. "And so just being able to represent that portion of it, kind of rewriting, if you will, at least a story during that period of time, was very intriguing to me."
But Weaver's project soon took on an even greater scope. She traveled to Lynchburg, Tennessee, where it all began, to speak to Green's descendants, who wished to see their ancestor receive the credit he so deserved. It was there that Weaver also visited Call's farm — which happened to be for sale. "It had been on the market for 15 months," Weaver explains. "So if that doesn't scream of serendipity and that this was meant to happen, I don't know what does. My husband and I immediately bought the farm, not knowing what we would do with it, just knowing that it was a great piece of American history, and we'd be crazy not to."

Ultimately, Weaver's ambitious, 12-month-long research project would uncover more than 5,000 artifacts and documents from five different states, and, with the help of more than 20 historians, archivists, archeologists, conservators and genealogists, who together conducted more than 2,500 hours of research, confirm four indisputable truths: Jack Daniel never owned any slaves, and Green was the first African American distiller on record in the U.S., the first master distiller for Jack Daniel Distillery and the wealthiest African American in Lynchburg.
The wheels continued to turn, and it wasn't long before Weaver realized she was on the fast track to founding a whiskey company that would honor the man who taught Daniel everything he knew. "Really, truly, the only thing I didn't do was say 'no' to any opportunity or any lead," she says, "and that's really how this came to be."

In July 2017, Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey launched under the umbrella of private, family-owned investment company Grant Sidney, Inc., which Weaver founded in 2010, and for which she serves as CEO. Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey was the most awarded American whiskey in 2019 and 2020, and its three ultra-premium whiskeys have won more than 150 awards and accolades worldwide. (Read more.)