It was a full house at the Humble Baron’s iconic horseshoe shaped bar at the Nearest Green Distillery as distillery founder Fawn Weaver took to the stage for the “Love & Whiskey Unfiltered Book Tour” Sunday June 30.
Officially released June 18, “Love & Whiskey” details not only the rise of the Uncle Nearest brand, but also the lives and friendship of Jack Daniel and Nearest Green and Green’s contribution to Jack Daniel’s as its first Master Distiller and role in American Whiskey history.
Weaver was joined by special guest Victoria Eady Butler, a great-great granddaughter of Nearest Green and the Uncle Nearest Master Blender.
“The nature of the unfiltered tour is we don’t know what questions are going to come because every audience has asked completely different questions,” Weaver said.
Officially kicking off the tour June 18 in Washington D.C., Weaver said the majority of questions asked tend to be about the story of Nearest Green rather than about Uncle Nearest Whiskey.
“Now they are happy for the tasting,” she said. “If your drink Uncle Nearest you know we make an incredible bourbon, we make an incredible Tennessee Whiskey. We might get one or two questions about the whiskey but for the most part it is all background.”
The only rules for guests are that ask a question rather than make a comment and make it one not easily found by a quick Google search.
“The only guardrail I give at the beginning of each thing is the notion that there is no dumb question is not true so ask a good one,” Weaver said.
Available both online and at the Nearest Green Distillery in Shelbyville, “Love and Whiskey” details Weaver’s discovery of the man Nearest Green and the spark of what would become a mission for him to have his rightful place in history.
According to the Nearest Green Foundation, Weaver spent countless hours interviewing more than 100 people, including descendants of Nearest Green still in the Lynchburg area, and there was a common sentiment that they would like to see him recognized.
All told, the research process involved more than 30 professionals ranging from historians to archologists and more than 3,000 hours of research was collected.
Through this research, the book proves several points about the life of Nearest Green, including that was the first African American Master Distiller recorded in the United States and served as the first Master Distiller for the Jack Daniel Distillery.
Weaver said it is not known where Nearest Green would have learned what would go down in history as the Lincoln County Process, but Lem Motlow, the nephew of Jack Daniel and his descendants commented about its origins.
“The only thing we know for sure is that Lem Motlow and his boys went on record in letting us know exactly where that process came from, so if you go into old press article interviews that they have done they said it came in with the enslaved people in the hills above Lynchburg, that would be in the lowest area where Nearest was,” she said.
While there are records of the charcoal mellowing process being done in Kentucky as early as the 18th century, it was not done in the same way as the modern-day process.
“The process that we know today, that we use today, the last person that we know for sure to have utilized it, to have taught it to have changed it is Nearest,” Weaver said. “Nobody else is on record after that.”
Weaver said when she looks at the success of the Nearest Green Distillery, she feels really proud and really grateful.
“There is no true explanation for it,” she said. “I tell people all the time there is one explanation and that is Nearest and Jack sitting in Heaven having a hoot.”
For more information about the Love & Whiskey book tour, visit loveandwhiskeybook.com.
