When you hear the name Jack Daniel , whiskeyprobably comes to mind .
But what about the name Nathan " Uncle Nearest " Green ?
In 2016 , The New York Timespublished a storyabout thedistiller ’s " hidden ingredient " — " help from a striver . " In the article , the brand officially acknowledge that an enslaved man , Nearest Green , learn Jack Daniel how to make whiskey . Since then , scholars , researcher and journalist have fall upon Lynchburg , Tennessee , hop to see more about a man who , until then , had come out as a mere appendage in the story ofthe country ’s most popular whiskey brand .
As a learner of tourismwhose inquiry involve highlight marginalized populations and counternarratives , I followed these developments with peachy interestingness .
In the fall of 2020 , my critical sustainable touristry students created a short documentary , " expose Nearest . " I want my students to learn more about Green , since so many voices and faces of enslaved Africans and Black Americans have beensilenced or erased from American story textbooks and heritage tourism sites .
Black Culinary Innovation
Popular media , through shows like Netflix ’s " High on the squealer : How African American Cuisine Transformed America , " have finally get down to acknowledge the way in which Black Americans have contributed to some of America ’s most iconic knockout and hard drink .
For instance , James Hemings , Thomas Jefferson ’s enslave chef , journey with Jefferson in 1784 to France , where he train in French cooking at the high culinary tier . He terminate up being instrumental in introduce legendary dishes like macaroni and Malva sylvestris , ice cream and Gallic fries to the United States .
James Hemings finally trained his younger sidekick , Peter , to take his position . In the fall of 1813 , Peter Hemings learned brew , and it ’s likely thathe became the the first Black person in America to be professionally educate as a craft beer brewer .
Neither James nor Peter Hemings was a hobby chef or leisure beer maker ; this was their forced way of life . And the enslaved the great unwashed who crafted unexampled saucer did n’t set out to exchange American cuisine . They simply needed to make do with what little they had .
enslave Captain James Cook were responsible for enter fixings and the know - how of such complex and parturiency - intensive dishes as huitre stew , gumbo , jambalaya and fried fish . However , their voices , names and creations were routinely left out of cookbook , where their white owners received the credit and the acclaim .
Nearest’s Legacy Unveiled
Now one name — Nearest Green — has become synonymous with whisky .
The New York Times clause from 2016 breathe in author and enterpriser Fawn Weaverto set out on a pursuance to reveal Nearest Green ’s full tarradiddle — what end up as a 12 - month research project involving more than 20 historians , archivists , archaeologists , conservators and genealogists .
Thanks to her work , a broad icon of Green ’s bequest has emerged .
Around the mid-1800s , Green ’s enslavers were a steadfast known asLandis & Green , who " lean out " Nearest Greenfor a fee to local sermonizer , the Rev. Dan Call . This was distinctive in an era in which enslaved homo were commonly necessitate in the making of spiritsdue to its reputation as dangerous , dirty oeuvre .
Nearest was known as a skilled distiller who specialized in a process known as sugar maple charcoal filtering — also called theLincoln County Process . This method — which some historiographer conceive was exhort by thetechniques of enslave adult male and womanhood who had used charcoal to separate out their body of water and make pure their foods in West Africa — feed Green ’s whisky a unique smoothness .
long time later , Jack Daniel , a 7 - class - old white orphan , was sent to the Call farm to be a chore boy . finally , he became Green ’s apprentice and was teach the Lincoln County Process , which differentiates bourbon from Tennessee whisky — making Nearest responsible for for the Tennessee whiskey we be intimate today . Victoria Eady - Butler , Green ’s descendent and former employee of Jack Daniel ’s Distillery , noted that there would " never have been Jack Daniel ’s made without a Green on the attribute . "
After emancipation , Call sold his distillery to Jack Daniel . Daniel appointed Nearest Green , by then a free man , to be the Jack Daniel Distillery ’s first master distiller , and thus the first inglorious overlord distiller on record in the United States . Weaver discoveredthat sometime after 1881 , Daniel move his distillery to its current Cave Spring Hollow location , where several of Green ’s children and grandchildren live to turn for him .
Nearest ’s second - born and fourth - born sons , George and Eli , distilled whisky on the Call Farm alongside Jack Daniel . Although no images of Nearest Green exist , a photographshows one of his sons , George , ride next to Jack Daniel .
Altogether , seven generations of Nearest Green ’s family have worked for the Jack Daniel Distillery and remain to work there to this day .
A Whiskey Brand of Their Own
Jack Daniel and his posterity made a lot of money from their whiskey caller over the years . In 1956 , the familysold it to Brown - Forman for $ 20 million — about $ 190 million in today ’s money .
While Nearest Green and his descendants do appear to have been pay fairly by the Daniel family , they did n’t own any of the still — and , consequently , did n’t get any of those trillion .
For decades , Nearest Green ’s name , bequest and donation to whiskey were largely unknown to anyone outside Lynchburg , Tennessee — even though , after the Civil War , according to nose count data , Nearest Green and his familyowned sizable plots of kingdom and were moneyed than many blanched syndicate living in Lynchburg .
Weaver was able-bodied to satisfy Green ’s descendants during her inquiry and asked them how they would care to see him honored . They told herthat " redact his name on a nursing bottle , let people know what he did , would be great . "
This gave Weaver the mind to start her own whisky ship’s company that honored Green ’s legacy . By 2019 shehad raised $ 40 million from investorsto create Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey . Later that year she opened theNearest Green Distilleryin Shelbyville . Weaver now dish as chief executive officer of the ship’s company , withVictoria Eady - Butler , a descendent of Green ’s , employed as the still ’s headmaster blender .
Unearthing and celebrate story like Green ’s is part of a thrust by scholar and travel company to expand marketing and storytelling in ways that include overlooked or shut up position .
In 2020 , Nomadness Travel Tribe partner withTourism RESET , where I serve as a Colorado - managing director and research fellow , to publish a written report that included both qualitative in - depth audience and a quantitative survey of more than 5,000 tourer to better understand the travelling experience of Black people and other people of colour .
Meanwhile , theBlack Travel Alliance , also in partnership with Tourism RESET , recently launched a new timeline and website , History Of Black Travel , which seeks to develop the populace on " how the African diaspora traveled to every part of the Earth . "
Ideally these efforts will produce spaces for dialogue around difficult subject like race and enslavement while authentically respect and amplifying the voices and legacies of Black Americans who help oneself to establish the United States .
And hopefully more stories of people like Nearest Green — an accomplished Black valet de chambre with a plentiful , nuanced life — will emerge .
Stefanie Benjamin is Assistant Professor of Retail , Hospitality , and Tourism Management , University of Tennessee . She is also a Colorado - director and research confrere at Tourism RESET .
This clause is republish fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons permit . you’re able to find the original clause here .
